Igniting Passion through Service at Dulwich Puxi

At Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi (DCSPX), teachers and students abide by a set of College values: Aim High Together, Work Hard Together, Be Kind & Respectful Together, and Make a Difference Together. The key word being "Together" – Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi is a school where collaboration, community and shared growth are at the heart of every experience, creating a sense of collective purpose among students, staff and families. At the heart of Dulwich Puxi's ethos is a dedication to service learning and teaching, empowering students to become responsible global citizens who contribute meaningfully to a better world.

Let's hear from Lauren McGinty as she speaks about the value of service learning, the International Baccalaureate (IB), and her experience in the Dulwich College International family of schools as History Teacher, CAS and EE Coordinator, and now Pastoral Lead for Year 10 and 11 at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi.

COMMUNITY & THE DCI FAMILY OF SCHOOLS

Growing up in Coventry, UK, Lauren always knew that she wanted to be a teacher. "I didn't ever really think about doing anything else, to be honest," she says. After completing her history degree at the University of York in 2011 and her PGCE at the University of Birmingham in 2012, she decided to set her sights as an international teacher abroad, despite having lived in the UK her whole life. 

"I just wanted to do something different, really," she explains. "I knew someone else that had gone abroad. I thought – oh wow. I might try that for myself."

Her international career brought her to Beijing first – specifically, Dulwich College Beijing, where she made close friends and colleagues that she is still connected to today. Lauren reminisces fondly on the personal support she received as a new expat teacher in China, as well as the professional advice and mentorship given as she navigated teaching the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum for the first time.

"The Head of the History Department [in Dulwich College Beijing] was fantastic, an amazing IB teacher, and she was one of the best people [for me] never having taught the IB before," Lauren recalls. "I still keep in touch with her."

Lauren believes that this sense of community is present across all Dulwich College International schools and one of the key differentiating factors of the group. DCI teachers often move between schools within the network that now spans China, Singapore, Korea, Switzerland, the UK, and Indonesia. While transitioning to new locations may be daunting, our teachers remain connected, sharing insights, experiences, and best practices – developing lasting relationships that create a network of support and collaboration.

One of the reasons for this sense of community, Lauren believes, is the type of teachers that are hired across the group. Educators hired across our group are not only highly qualified but also share a deep sense of purpose, aligned with our overarching commitment to creating excellent, supportive, and inclusive learning environments for students. 

Across our schools, teachers engage in group-wide professional development and stay in touch through regular communication and collaboration groups."I've still got a lot of friends from Beijing and a lot of people I keep in touch with professionally. We have these collaboration groups across the group that happen a couple of times a year as professional development for everybody. People talk about what they're doing, how they deliver things – it's nice to be collaborative with people that you still keep in touch with."

Lauren stayed at Dulwich College Beijing for three years before moving to Singapore at another international school placement. Although she had a fantastic experience in Singapore, she missed China – and perhaps even more so the Dulwich College International family.

"I didn't realise how lucky I had been in my first international school [Dulwich College Beijing]," Lauren says with a laugh. "In terms of how well-structured everything was and the people I met. I thought that I would happily go back into the group. And that's kind of what I did when I came back to Puxi."

LIFE AT DULWICH PUXI

Lauren returned to China in 2021, taking up the role of History Teacher, EE and CAS Coordinator at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi. Lauren loves her role at Dulwich Puxi, not just because she loves history as a subject, but also because of the support provided by the College.

" I think [Dulwich Puxi] has really allowed me to develop as a practitioner. I've had a lot of freedom with developing the history curriculum, which I've really enjoyed."

She teaches history from Year 8 through Year 11 as well as IB History, and although her timetable is full, she speaks passionately about her love for her classes, students, and subject. 

"It's a lot, yeah," she laughs. "But it's interesting in terms of the topics that we do, and what we've got on the curriculum to try and make it more interesting for the kids as well."

Being given the freedom to explore not only her interests but those of her students, along with the autonomy to design a history curriculum tailored to her classes, has allowed Lauren to create a learning environment that is both engaging and relevant for her students. Ironically, despite the historical content of her lessons, she plans her curriculum with the future of her pupils in mind: for example, as many students aim to go to university in America, she incorporates more twentieth century US history in the Key Stage Three curriculum to ensure that graduates enter the next stage of their lives with a solid grasp of the country's history and cultural context.

"When you're going somewhere and you're aware of issues that exist in the society, you can be more mindful, more aware, more cognizant and engaged with what's going on and realise the context you're in," she explains. 

Lauren is excited about the future and her new role."I feel like I've benefited from being in the group as a whole. It's developed me as a teacher, and it's made me a better teacher as well."

THE IB – CREATIVITY, ACTION, SERVICE (CAS) & EXTENDED ESSAY 

The International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum is widely regarded as a holistic educational framework that fosters critical thinking, global awareness, and a lifelong love of learning. As the CAS and EE Coordinator at Dulwich Shanghai Puxi for three years, Lauren explains the breadth and depth of the IB curriculum. 

As the EE Coordinator, Lauren found herself spending time guiding students through the complexities of their independent research projects, helping them refine their research questions, learn how to perform academic research, and navigate the challenges of academic writing.

"You have to think about helping them with their research skills – they're going on JSTOR and looking at academic articles potentially for the first time. It's a lot more in-depth than anything they've ever done before," she explains, "teaching them how to do proper academic referencing. It's amazing, really, when you think about the skills that they learn. Doing that really prepares them for their IB course work and massively prepares them for university."

Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi provides unparalleled support for students embarking on their Extended Essay journey. With dedicated mentors – like Lauren – and access to extensive resources, DCSPX ensures that each student is well-equipped to succeed. But the IB curriculum is an intense one, and alongside the EE, TOK as well as the six subjects required, CAS requires 50 hours of creativity, activity and service. Together with the large workload that that students have, especially in Year 13, CAS can be hard to manage. One of the biggest issues for students in the IB, Lauren says, is time.

To combat this, Lauren has proposed a school trip that allows students to fulfil their Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) requirements in an immersive way. This trip not only consolidates the time spent on CAS activities, but also provides students with the opportunity to develop leadership and organizational skills within the planning portion pre-trip. From an academic point of view, the CAS trip alleviates the pressure of balancing IB commitments – integrating service learning into a concentrated period and freeing up time for students to focus on their academic studies and personal wellbeing. This ensures that students can meet their CAS requirements without feeling overwhelmed, while also making a significant contribution to communities in need. 

"You're not going there just to be there. That's performative and it's not valuable. What does this community actually need? And what can we do to try and meet that need? This makes it actually a valuable experience and something that's worthwhile for that community."

Leading up to the CAS trip, Lauren works with her students to determine what items are necessary – things like paper, school backpacks, shoes for children maybe one or two sizes bigger to last longer, pencils, cooking oil, washing powder. The students then brainstorm activities to raise funds for these items, such as clothes donation drives or fundraising rounds. This provides another layer of education, as the entire process involved to plan, organize, raise money, and secure useful items is a valuable hands-on learning experience: teaching students the essential skills of leadership, communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and even financial literacy. 

"The students think about what type of sales they could do. Can we do bake sales? Can we try and sell bubble tea? There's a lot of skills development there. They're having to organize things and they're having to work together. They're planning what they're going to do in advance. It's developing leadership skills, like communication - having to reach out to teachers and say, can I do this? Can we organise that? They'll get a lot of personal growth out of it."

However, it's important that the trip isn't performative or a tick-box exercise. Service trips need to be managed carefully to ensure they are genuinely impactful and mutually beneficial for both the students and the communities they serve. Lauren emphasises the importance of maintaining a relationship with each community and shares her plan to focus on a particular region, visiting different schools within the same community each year so that resources and support are distributed equally. 

"I've said to my students that it's a situation we need to approach with a lot of maturity as well. Just because these people have less, it doesn't mean they're less deserving of anything as well. As a school and with our ethos, we really want to cultivate a lot of empathy in the students. We want the students to go out into the world with an awareness of social issues and their own social responsibilities."

SERVICE LEARNING AT DULWICH PUXI BEYOND THE IB

Service learning at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi, however, is not limited to the IB Curriculum and IB students. Lauren highlights the way that service is introduced at a young age within the College and maintained throughout a student’s journey from Early Years to Senior School. She emphasises the importance of ensuring service is loved and lived – not just learnt – to avoid the pressure and expectations that happen when service is only considered an academic requirement.

"Everyone has social responsibilities. Service is something that we would be doing anyway because this is something that we, as a school, believe in," Lauren explains. "It's something that we think benefits students personally, that they are going to take something away from this. This might be an experience that really changes something in terms of what they want to do, see things, or approach social issues."

So, service learning at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi goes beyond curriculum requirements and mere volunteerism. It is an essential component of the school's educational philosophy, providing students with opportunities to develop essential skills, cultivate empathy, and become active contributors to their communities.

Lauren goes on to detail some of the remarkable initiatives that have been proposed by students of all ages at Dulwich Puxi. Year 7 students promote environmental sustainability through the Elevated Honey project, developing their understanding of environmental conservation as well as the significance of sustainable practices in agriculture. Some volunteer at the local hospital. Others volunteer during the summer holiday to rural communities in China to teach English, and also to teach Mandarin as people in those communities might speak dialect instead. There have been students that run after school clubs. They've been a part of coaching younger students. They've ran different sports teams. One boy runs a 3D printing CCA. A group of girls even made a whole cookbook of easy recipes.

"One of the things we've identified is that a lot of students would just be exclusively living on pot noodles in university," she laughs. "So even just simple things on how to cook and how to bake."

When asked about why she thinks service learning is important, Lauren goes silent for a moment. Then she explains, in a perfectly summed up description of the ethos at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi:

"I think it adds maturity. I think it adds perspective. It exposes them to different cultures, different experiences. Our students need to be able to engage with other people and understand there's lots of different types of people in the world and lots of different types of lived experiences."