WLSA Shanghai Academy
Shanghai, China
Founded in 2012, the WLSA Shanghai Academy's mission is to develop young men and women to become leaders of character and major contributors to their local, national, and international communities.
The WLSA Shanghai Academy seeks to inspire its students to pursue their individual passions through internationally-recognized and innovative academics and co-curricular programs.
The WLSA Shanghai Academy uses the WLSA Curriculum that was created to integrate the best of western and eastern pedagogy to create culturally sensitive, internationally minded students.
WLSA Global Impact Program (GIP)
Shanghai, China
WLSA Shanghai Academy Global Impact Program
The Global Impact Program (GIP) is a unique, skills-based curriculum that forms the foundation of a holistic vision of high school education in a globalized society. Built from the ground up, students develop critical skills and competencies in a rigorous and empowering three-year program based on our core values:
Promoting academic excellence
WLSA Shanghai Academy seeks to prepare students for success both at WLSA Shanghai Academy and abroad at elite universities around the world. All courses are taught with exceptionally high standards and involve rigorous, thorough assessment. One aspect where we differ from traditional schools is through our distinction courses, which are unique classes, built in direct response to our local educational context, that target specific skills students need to succeed here and abroad.
Creating community leaders
Through their experience here, students are encouraged and given the opportunity to connect with their surroundings through a leadership-oriented curriculum, interactions with their cultural heritage and community service. Students actively participate, as both leaders and members, in themed clubs known as co-curricular activities (CCA) where they work with similarly minded peers to pursue and develop their interest in specific topics.
Developing global citizenship
While being an active member of a community is deeply valued at WLSA Shanghai Academy , understanding their own role in globalized world is of equal importance. Throughout the curriculum, students are challenged to consider the world at large and their place in it. Students particularly focus on this concept through grade 12, as they explore both cross-cultural understandings as well as applied ethics through special distinction courses.
These values are both enhanced and assessed through our capstone program where grade 12 students independently choose and research a topic of both local and global significance. The multitude of skills developed through their experience at WLSA Shanghai Academy are tested through a variety of rigorous assessments, culminating in both a technical research essay as well as a thesis defense.
WLSA/XZY International Teaching Program (ITP)
Shanghai, China
In 2013 WLSA joined hands with the highly-reputed Xin Zhu Yuan Middle School. The WLSA/XZY International Teaching Program (ITP) currently, in 2018-19 has a total of around 165 students. It is a co-curricular, bilingual program for grades 6, 7, 8 and 9. In G6 and G7 55% of the classes are taught in English, including Science, English and Public Speaking, while in G8 and G9 it is around 75% - 80% in English.
Class size is limited to maximum 25, in order for each student to be given enough 1-to-1 attention, as well as being given enough opportunity to develop appropriate fluency levels in English. There are 8 forty-minute classes every day, as well as 2 hours of self-study 4 evenings a week for boarders.
The, interactive, Western style of teaching, alongside the compulsory subjects taught in Chinese ensures that WLSA/XZY students become effective, critical thinkers, in preparation for their studies in the WLSA Shanghai Academy, or indeed at other institutions either inside or outside China. In the school year 2018-19, there are 35 WLSA/XZY G9 graduates in grades 10 and 11 at the WLSA Shanghai Academy.