A Letter from Chief Principal | Fighting Pandemic Hand-in-Hand with One Heart

Dear Parents and Students,

It is assumed that the sudden outbreak of pandemic and the online teaching have created a lot of concerns, time of school resumption, efficiency of online classes, hard to take care of students and lack of physical exercises, etc. These concerns always make people exhausted and confused. As the chief principal, I hope to share my thoughts with you through this letter and accompany parents and students to get through this special study journey.

'Life is like a box of chocolates', it is unpredictable, and you never know what will happen next. In terms of the adversity that comes by chance, we should face it with a positive attitude and minimize its negative impacts. Students are the reflection of their parents, their attitudes and behaviors play an important role in supporting students. I hope that parents and teachers will work together to lead students to respond to challenges with a positive attitude.

ASJ is located in Guangzhou, a beautiful city of flowers. Now that our home is affected by the epidemic, we should work together hand-in-hand with one heart, do our best to fulfill the government's epidemic prevention and control requirements. This is also a part of patriotic education, not only focusing on personal interests, but also contributing to the overall development of our country. Recently, the vaccination and antibody therapy in Hong Kong have reached a certain level of success, hence, some epidemic prevention measures have been relieved. However, cases of severe illnesses and deaths can still be found. The ‘dynamic zero-COVID’ policy is based on health and life guarantee, it aims to completely prevent the spread of virus within the community, we should show respect and cooperation for it.

As an IB International School, we aim to develop life-long learners who are risktakers, principled, inquirers, open-minded, knowledgeable, reflective, well-balanced, communicators, caring, and thinkers.

During the period of distance learning, I hope that all students can continue striving for these 10 characteristics. The first is to accept the challenge of epidemic, ‘suspending classes without suspending learning’. Be principled and make a feasible study timetable for yourself. Be open-minded and keep inquiring new knowledge of different fields and broaden your horizons. Recent education research has shown that students with strong autonomy have improved their knowledge significantly during the online teaching period, mainly because they have more time to read books and revise their learning, it is highly depended on one’s self-management ability, which is an important section in life education. I strongly suggest that students should be able to reflect on their own learning progress through making study notes every day to confirm your efforts and achievements.

Knowledge is not everything about life. We must pay attention to well-balanced development, understand how to take care of our physical and emotional health, and do some appropriate physical exercise every day, such as running and rope skipping. In terms of emotional health, students should be friendly communicators, take care of their families and society during this special period. I hope that students will know how to think and evaluate independently, be responsible for their own study, and work harder to become better selves.

As the chief principal, I will instruct my teaching team to do their best in online teaching. There are also psychological teachers available who can provide online psychological counseling for students. ASJ will pay close attention to the students' learning progression, adjust the school calendar in a timely manner to ensure that the school can fully complete the annual teaching plan. We are particularly concerned about G12 students and the HKDSE in 2023, ASJ is currently conferring about the feasible plan for further examination preparation, we will promptly notify the follow-up arrangement once it is confirmed.

Let’s join hands together to fight the pandemic with one heart and one mind to secure a healthy, safe, and happy environment, we sincerely hope to see everyone back to campus soon.

Best regards,

Affiliated School of JNU
for Hong Kong & Macao Students
2022 Nov. 10th