July 16, Shenyang

My day at Oriental Cambridge International School began with a bus ride from the door of our hotel directly to the school. As we pulled up to the campus, I thought it was a university. There was so much space on the campus, with a pond outside the international department, and separate but connected buildings for classes, lab work, performing arts and library. Moving between buildings took time to get used to but the environment was really open and made me really enjoy the natural environment.

In the morning I was together with all the other grade ten students, but we quickly went to different classes based on our choices. I got to choose every course. There were even some students in BTEC courses who had half their classes in the art room. I started out the day going with BTEC students, who were doing a project where each student designed a chair inspired by a different art style. The cool part was that later, they would get to actually build the chairs in their design technology student. Cross-disciplinary products seemed common at OCIS because my next class was psychology and they were using what they learned in psychology to analyze a case study from business class.

I loved all the choices because I got to choose my favorites and also because the classes were small so I got to know the teachers well. That was interesting because they were all from different countries. I also had a lot of choices during the club activity times. There were four periods of extracurricular activities in the week, plus an extra hour every day for boarding students. I followed other students to the “land surfing” ECA, where the PE teacher taught me to ride a land surfboard. I thought it was a skateboard, but he showed me it was different. I’m glad I chose this ECA because we skated around the whole campus. I wish I had come in the winter though because they told me they usually rode snowboards when it snowed.

Later we had a counseling class that was also helpful. Most of the students were working on a project introducing universities from different countries so the counselor talked to me about their options. Some of the previous graduates received offers from top ranking universities such as University College London, Manchester University, Edinburgh University and University of Amsterdam.

Finally, about half the students stayed in the school dorms at night. After other students left at 4, we had an hour for club activities then an hour for dinner. I decided to stay until 9 so I could see what it was like. I’m glad I stayed because while most students had supervised self-study, I got to go with the Duke of Edinburgh candidates who were preparing for their required camping trip. The teacher in charge stayed late that night and we all set up tents and had a barbecue. I didn’t get to sleep in a tent this time, but if I come here I will definitely join that activity.

Overall it was a busy day, but the fresh air of the huge campus gave me energy to quickly adjust to the academic atmosphere in the classes. Here I think I would be busy, but with all the club activities it would be a lot of fun!

July 16, Shenyang

OCIS is outside the city! This was a big surprise to me as we drove past mountains and forests and even the school was big and open. Lots of fresh air and green spaces made the school a nice place to visit.

The teachers said the school has a ‘blended curriculum’. It means they teach using both Chinese and international styles in primary school. Chinese and maths are taught in Chinese by local teachers and other subjects are taught in English by foreign teachers.

It was nice that the teachers really seemed to want to get to know us as they taught, I think the art and performing arts teachers especially wanted to hear our ideas and show us how to make our thoughts and feelings known. The school also has a debate group, which I was allowed to visit. They are practicing hard for a big competition soon and their coach is helping them a lot and showing them how to practice with mock debates. I hadn’t seen this before and it looks quite interesting.

The library was another big surprise for me. There was a lot of open space and comfortable places to read, but still a massive choice of books to choose from. The library teacher was showing students how to find different kinds of information easily in the library, but also encouraged us to take time to read any different kinds of books that we found interesting.

Twice a week, the students take time off from their studies to do extra-curricular activities. As we visited on a Wednesday, I chose to join their Outdoor Pursuits ECA. The teacher started by showing us how to tie some knots, which was a little tricky, but we were all able to practice and the teacher showed us in different ways until we could all do it. He then showed us how to make shelters and so we went outside to make model shelters using branches, leaves and plants. Bigger shelters will be made another time, but for now, we put a toy inside out model shelter to see if it would keep dry.

I had a great day at OCIS and with so many things to do, I can’t imagine getting bored here.