UK boarding school headmaster taps China market
Print Edition
AS many Chinese families are sending their children abroad at a young age, foreign boarding schools find China a rapidly growing market.
Highfield School, an English prep school with a history of over 100 years, plans to expand its summer school program next year to meet the rising demand, said Phillip Evitt, the headmaster. He recently came to Shanghai to meet some students and their parents.
Among its 300 students aged 8 to 13 only 15 are international students, including four from China. The school has a long waiting list because of its prestige and high-quality education.
It launched a three-week summer school program two years ago for children aged 8 to 15 and will expand it to include more foreign students and let them get a taste of the main school. Students can take courses, enjoy sports and other school activities, and visit famous sites such as the Windsor Castle, the Portsmouth Harbor and Winchester.
“The summer school is designed to significantly improve their English and introduce them to life in an English boarding school,” said Evitt.
English is taught through math, science, history and geography classes. The program had 25 foreign students in the first year and 40 students the second year, including 10 Chinese. It will have 60 students next year.
Evitt advised parents to send their children abroad at a younger age so that they can better adapt to the English education system. “I think the advantage of coming to us earlier is that it prepares them for all the things they need in a much larger senior school. It gives us more time to prepare them for senior schools.”
Evitt said many top senior schools in Britain now make assessments when students reach 10 years old.
“If we start teaching them at age 8 or 9, it helps us to get to know them better and helps them to get used to the English system and get ready for assessments by senior schools,” the headmaster said.
He believes a boarding school is ideal for children, offering them amazing opportunities. “The core of any good school is its education and the opportunity to learn many other things such as sports, music, drama and art,” he said.
“The boarding school teaches you how to live with other people. You can’t always choose to share space with your friends. You have to learn to get along with others,” he added.
Evitt’s own four children also attend the boarding school. He said he was proud to see their social confidence. They are very relaxed when meeting strangers, very good at resolving conflicts among themselves, and very good at working as a team.
“I think a good boarding school goes beyond learning academic subjects. Students also learn how to live with other people. Boarding schools not only prepare them for senior schools but also prepare them for the workplace and the world,” he said.
To attend a boarding school, a child needs some courage and learns to get involved. It is easier for young children, Evitt said.
“Small kids are much more outward-looking,” he explained. “As we grow older, particularly after we had some lessons in life, we tend to feel quite insecure about who we are, how we look, and those kinds of things. Children are just endlessly positive. The younger they are, the less they judge and the more they want to get involved.”
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