Fortune Kindergarten International Schools (FKIS) Profile

Two FKIS schools at Dong Fang and Jintaiyang, Shanghai introduced P4C in 2014.  Both are bi-lingual international schools covering pre-K to K2 age ranges.  Dong Fang campus leads in English, while Jintaiyang campus leads in Mandarin.  Between the two schools there are 300 pupils and 15 teachers.

Importance of P4C

FKIS introduced P4C to support its mission of preparing young children for the future, supporting their development into global citizens and proud representatives of their national cultures.  P4C is successfully adopted in 60 countries worldwide, with an internationally recognised training pathway, accredited by DialogueWorks.   P4C encourages caring, collaborative, creative and critical thinking in children.  With age appropriate implementation, it is applicable for children as young as 3 years old.

In a P4C session,  teachers take the role of facilitators to encourage children to collaborate in order to develop meaningful questions based on a common stimulus – a story book, a video, an object.  Children vote for the best question to discuss – generating ideas, agreeing and disagreeing with each other, building on each others’ ideas, giving reasons and coming to a deeper understanding of the question under discussion.

In three years of P4C practice, FKIS has achieved several impressive milestones:

• AdvancedEd, one of the largest school accreditation agencies in the world said:  “The school’s dedication to fostering a bilingual community of child centric design, including the P4C program is moving the school to levels of genuine international excellence”

•  Both schools have achieved Bronze and Silver P4C Awards, the first schools in China to do so
  
  
• Cindy Zheng and Stephen Walshe, principals of the schools have become accredited DialogueWorks P4C trainers

Click here to see an example of the parents' newsletter from Fortune Kindergarten, Dong Fang