Hackley-Beijing National Day School Partnership

The Middle School’s Chinese 8 class launched its school correspondence exchange project with the Beijing National Day School (BNDS) during the third trimester. BNDS is a leading 7 – 12 grade school in China with over 4,000 students. It was founded in 1952 by Zhou Enlai, China’s first premier, and other leaders of the newly established People’s Republic of China. Hackley students are corresponding with their counterparts in a BNDS English class, rotating correspondence between Chinese and English every other week, sharing their interests and culture via a weekly email. Hackley first contacted BNDS in the fall of 2009 through the introduction of the China Exchange Initiative, a teacher managed non-profit based in Massachusetts whose mission is to increase learning and understanding between U.S. and Chinese schools. 

 

Since that time, Hackley has hosted two delegations from BNDS and visited the BNDS campus during the summer of 2010. This year, under the leadership of Anne Gatschet, the Upper School began a joint water sustainability focused project with students from BNDS as part of Hackley’s participation in the NAIS 20/20 program. 

 

We will be expanding the school correspondence exchange project to all of the Middle School Chinese language students next year and are looking forward growing our relationship with BNDS and our mutual understanding of our two nations.