BIS DP Coordinator Won Honorary Title of Excellent Educator

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Warm congratulation goes out to Mr. Matthew Kirk who is IB Diploma Coordinator at BIS on winning the honorary title of Excellent Educator of the Year 2020-2021 in Xinwu District, Wuxi. The honorary title of Excellent Educator is to acknowledge and encourage the educators in district who played an important role as a benchmark and a model in terms of cultivating high-quality schools, promoting the collaborative development of regional education, and contributing to the higher-level development of reginal education.

As the IB Diploma Coordinator of Boston International School, Mr. Matthew Kirk has a strong educational background with Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Post Graduate Certificates from both University of Sheffield and Manchester Metropolitan University, majoring in Education. He is currently studying on a master’s degree in Education Leadership, demonstrating core IB value of life-long learning. Before joining Boston International School, Mr. Matthew Kirk has worked across the world in the UK, Dubai, Vietnam, and China and has held numerous positions which add value to the diversity of culture and education experience to Boston International School.

Mr. Matthew Kirk has been working at Boston International School for almost 6 years since 2015 when the school was at a previous campus. He has made a broad and deep contribution in terms of Secondary School Science teaching and a leadership role of IB Diploma Education. He has contributed to BIS both in the classroom and as a leader. In the classroom, he enthuses students about Science and how it impacts their lives, in positive and negative ways. He facilitates student gains in scientific knowledge and understanding in thoughtful ways, adapting to the needs of the learners as much as possible. He has instilled academic rigor, modelled expectations, and recognized learner success, when appropriate.

As a leader, he has led teachers and students to find the best in themselves and to reflect carefully on what they are doing. He has worked hard to build a culture of professional growth and improvement, rather than stagnation. With sustained effort in building the IB Diploma, BIS graduates for the previous school years have achieved excellent IBDP scores.

The school year of 2020-2021 was a historic year for BIS IB Diploma with 30% of DP candidates achieved 40 points, 70% of DP candidates achieved the Bilingual IB Diploma. With this excellent score, the graduates got offers from many universities, with 30% coming from world Top 100 universities. As part of the school’ s leadership team, Mr. Matthew Kirk has built a group of professionals around him and has overseen continued growth together with other senior leadership team members. His approach is both popular and respected amongst the students, teachers, and parents.

Mr. Mathew Kirk has his own understanding about education. He passionately believes that the main purpose of education is to develop lifelong learners with understanding and skills that will equip them to face the challenges of a world that is unpredictable and rapidly changing. We cannot always teach in the same way that we were taught last century. Every learner should be facilitated and guided in achieving their own personal potential, whatever that may be. Learning does not only happen within the confines of school, but all experiences can be drawn upon as a learner develops. Too often we focus on the ‘end result’ in education, but the journey to get there is at least as important.

Mr. Matthew Kirk loves life in Wuxi and is willing to contribute more to international education in Wuxi. In particular, he thrives on opportunities to share good practice with the wider educational community and has made contributions locally, nationally and on the international scene. Locally, he has worked directly with our parent community, a key element in strengthening the learning of students – formally through a range of Parent Workshops at the school and informally through social events and offering educational guidance, where needed. Nationally, Mr. Matthew is a contributing member to our IB Diploma Coordinator regional network. Internationally, he is part of large international educator networks and has attended various conferences, such as ‘The future of Education Now’ [Hong Kong 2019] and various IB Global Conferences. Very recently he successfully worked alongside a team of educators from around the world in workshops specifically for Middle Leaders in Education.

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