Opening Ceremony of SCBS Pudong

The official opening ceremony for SCBS (Shanghai Concord Bilingual School) Pudong was held on August 31 for students, parents and staff at the grand auditorium in the new school.

In line with the bilingual nature of the school, the ceremony was bilingual with all speeches translated into Chinese or English. Francis Ping, Founder and Chairman of the Board, spoke first and stressed the impressive achievements of SCBS Pudong’s sister school SCBS Puxi, as well as encouraging students at all stages in their education at Pudong to achieve their best through endeavour.

Neil Hawkins, Global Principal Concord College International, began his address to the audience by recalling visiting the school site as a brown field in 2017 and that to see it transformed into a school of such stature was a tribute to all those involved. He added:

‘Good education is transformative.  Great education is life-changing.   Children have just one chance to be young and to grow into adulthood.  It is my belief that great education combines enabling children to become more than they are, while helping them to develop the creative problem solving skills they will need, to face the challenges of tomorrow.  Children should also be schooled in an atmosphere of harmony and kindness in which respect, good manners and positivity are encouraged.  Following this ethos, children can be happy, purposeful and successful while maturing into decent and trust-worthy young adults and ultimately into useful, impressive and fulfilled members of society.

‘I can see that here in this wonderful school the foundations have been laid to provide life-changing education for generations of Pudong children.  I look forward to seeing SCBS Pudong and its students flourishing in the years ahead.’

Other speeches were given by Dr Oliver Kramer, SCBS Executive International Principal; Mr Hu, SCBS Pudong Executive Chinese Principal; a parent representative; a teacher representative and two Grade 6 students. There were musical performances including two songs performed by Grade 1 and Grade 6 sang the school song as part of the hour long ceremony, which was extremely well received by the invited guests.