Wellington Today Wellington Today 2018 en | Page 30

WELLINGTON COMMUNITY
WELLINGTON COLLEGE CHINA FESTIVAL OF EDUCATION
WELLINGTON COLLEGE CHINA
CELEBRATED THE 2017
FESTIVAL OF EDUCATION
From 20 th to 23 rd October 2017, Wellington College China held
its third annual Festival of Education, which promised to outdo
even the great success of previous years. With more than 40
education expert speakers delivering over 90 diverse speeches
and workshops across the four-day event hosted in three
different cities – Shanghai, Hangzhou and Tianjin – everyone
agreed that this year’s event lived up to that promise.
Courage
Respect
Integrity
Kindness
Responsibility
The Wellington College China Festival of Education has its
origins in the founding school’s festival in England, which has run
for seven years and is recognised as a benchmark international
educational event. For the past three years, the festival has also
taken place in China, where it has enjoyed similar success in
attracting thousands of participants to discuss the most relevant
and important questions facing modern education. Dr Stephen
Jacobi, festival director and director of culture at Wellington
College International Shanghai, said: ‘The Festival of Education
represents a continued commitment to thinking about, exploring,
and encouraging debate about what education is and where it
might be headed. More than ever, teaching and learning must be
dynamic and keep up with the demands and challenges of a fast-
shifting world.’
This year’s festival focused on four core themes: Early Years
Education, Wellbeing (stress, body image, and mental health),
the evolving relationship between Chinese and British education,
and ‘Exploring Education’, which challenges accepted teaching
practices with the aim of encouraging continual experimentation
and improvement. A growing strength of the festival is its ability
to get all participants actively talking about what works in current
education and what doesn’t, rather than just letting them simply
sit back and passively absorb the presentations and keynote
speeches. At all times, attendees were encouraged to consider
how education can be made better: to connect, debate,
celebrate, explore and learn.
International speakers from across the world led in-depth
explorations of all four themes using different ways of
encouraging audience participation. From Q&A sessions, to
attendees enjoying some spirited dancing as part of Shonette
Bason’s ‘Permission to be Happy’ talk and singing in the early
years music workshop, festival goers were more involved in the
discussion this year than ever before.
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