Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi: Excellence in English

At Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi believe in the value of aiming high and working hard.  We encourage our students to challenge themselves by participating in international competitions.  We are proud of the Senior School students who entered Immerse Education’s Essay Competition 2021.  Students were tasked with writing a 500 word essay for 13-15 year olds on pre-set questions and judged against peers from across the world. The standard was very high.

“Our independent judges have remarked on the exceptionally high quality of essays that we received this year across all categories, and it is very clear that entrants have invested significant effort in researching and writing their essays.”
—Feedback from Immerse Education

We are proud to share that three of our Year 9 students were commended for the quality of their writing and have been awarded scholarships to attend their choice of Immerse Education’s online summer programmes being hosted at University of Oxford/University Cambridge later this year.  Well done to our award winning writers: Richard and Vaishu, who wrote essays on International Relations and Jacinda who wrote a Business Studies essay.  Our award winners were delighted to receive the following feedback:

“This has been a record breaking competition as we received thousands of entries from students attending leading schools all over the world. Congratulations on being recognised as one of the highest calibre of entries this year.”
—Feedback from Immerse Education.

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Preparation for university

Essay competitions like this help provide powerful evidence in support of students’ university applications.  The Complete University Guide recommends that students include subject specific pieces of work that have received recognition such as awards and prizes in their personal statements for university.  Moreover, being awarded a scholarship in an international competition adds weight to future scholarship/educational sponsorship applications. Enrichment opportunities like this complement our comprehensive university guidance programme, which starts in Year 7 and continues throughout the Senior School.

A structured approach to the teaching and learning of writing

A Dulwich education emphasises academic rigour and these results reflect the high standards of English at our College. Essential communication skills are in integral part of our curriculum and a structured approach to the teaching and learning of writing underpins our English programme. From mark making in the Early Years to the Extended Essay in the IB Diploma, we develop our students’ ability to express themselves in the written word with increasing clarity, coherence and creativity. From these strong foundations in English, our students harness the written word to present and persuade, evaluate and explain in subjects across the curriculum including Science, History, Geography and Business Studies. Finding an authentic voice is essential for writing a compelling personal statement for university and students receive input on this as well. We are committed to providing additional opportunities such as the Immerse Essay Competition to enhance this provision and stretch our students even further.

French author Gustave Flaubert stated that:

The art of writing is art of discovering what you believe.

Graduating Worldwise involves being able to communicate with confidence.  We are proud that our students are already benchmarking themselves against the best in the world.