On April 17, 2023, the Cambridge Assessment International Education hosted the Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards Ceremony in Shenzhen to recognize the exceptional performance of students in the 2022 international exams.
A total of 51 individuals from Shenzhen College of International Education were presented with the Cambridge Outstanding Learner Award, and students from SCIE were recognized in almost every subject category.
In attendance at the ceremony were the award recipients and the principal’s team from SCIE. Following the event, the CAIE team visited SCIE to engage in friendly discussions.
Before the award ceremony began, students from SCIE performed a melodious classical music for the guests, parents, and fellow students, which was captivating and kicked off the ceremony.
Dr. Zhao Jing, the East Asia Director of the Cambridge Assessment International Education, stated that the awards represent recognition of the students’ efforts in their studies. Mr. Anthony Dawson, the Vice Director of the CAIE who traveled from the UK for the ceremony, highly praised the students’ outstanding performance, saying that their ability to overcome the difficulties during the epidemic and achieve excellent results was admirable.
At the ceremony, the award-winning students received their awards one by one on stage. Additionally, Mr. Neil Mobsby, the Executive Principal of SCIE, accepted awards on behalf of the 2022 graduates who have already left for further studies around the world.
Kerry Tang Shiyun, a SCIE graduate, was praised and applauded by the guests after she shared her learning experience and university application process as a student representative following the award ceremony.
The award ceremony for the Cambridge Outstanding Learner Award ended in a cheerful atmosphere, which was a recognition and encouragement of the students’ achievements in this stage, and also inspired everyone to keep moving forward.
On the afternoon of the award day, Dr. Zhao Jing, Mr. Anthony Dawson, and Ms. Jamie Jin from CAIE visited SCIE for in-depth discussions with the SCIE’s Principal team and visited various facilities on campus.
During the visit, the Principal’s team led the guests to visit the our Engineering Classroom, where they coincidentally encountered an engineering society activity. Mary, the president of the club, introduced the preparation and use of the engineering classroom and the school’s support for student clubs.
During the visit, the CAIE guests praised the academic environment and teaching achievements of SCIE. Before the tour ended, everyone took a group photo in front of the class of 2023 graduate poster near the volleyball court.
As stated on the CAIE official website, We sincerely hope that through the Cambridge Outstanding learner Award, “students can not only gain honor but also bravely face the future and continue to create greater brilliance.”
My essay is on the recent development of China’s mental health care system and how it can help address this question. Though, I actually parried the question raised by the prompt, and I did not in the end emphasise too much that more care should be devoted to the socially vulnerable. Rather, I intended to underscore the complexity and ambiguity in any employment of these two notions — “socially vulnerable” and “responsibility” — in the concrete working of society. Through my study I discovered that the train of legislative efforts made in the 1980s to 2000s to legally recognise, to enhance public knowledge of, and to erect new asylums for, “the mentally ill,” in fact coincided spatiotemporally with government efforts in putting new agendas of foreign policies and city development to work. Thus, the recent development of China’s mental health care, from scratch to full maturity, is not solely the consequence of “humanitarian effort,” but also of some other ulterior motives. In my conclusion, I hinted that any answer to this question would entail empirical investigation into the concrete working of social institutions, and depending on the nature of this “socially vulnerable” group, claims of “responsibility” may be leveraged as veils for other purposes.
Before starting my research I did not by then have a well-formed hypothesis, but I did have Michel Foucault’s intriguing study on madness in mind. Due to the rather peculiar nature of the object of my study, I was not able to apply the sociological theories (Marxism, Functionalism, e.g.) I learnt in class to my own research. I must thank my sociology teacher for his encouragement and provision of many textbook resources and classical studies done in the field of mental health care. In addition to that, he prepared a statement of the school for my application to conduct short interviews at a local mental health hospital — this application, however, though quite expectedly, sank into oblivion — without his help this project would be very difficult.
I made a documentary “The Definition” about the situation of elderly in Shenzhen to enter this competition. As I have some previous knowledge in filmmaking, learning from TBU studio, I though it would be meaningful if I combined my filmmaking skills with sociology knowledge. In the meanwhile, after learning the very first chapter of sociology, The Family, I found out that the situation of elderly in the UK is different from that of elderly in Shenzhen. For instance, elderly have the responsibility taking care of their grandchildren and dance in the park for entertainment is distinctive in China. Therefore, I decided to make a documentary to record the interesting culture.
I learnt a lot during the preparation for the competition. I learned a lot about how to carry out an individual primary research when I was filming “The Definition”, which helps a lot in my current sociology study. Also, I understood sociology theories better. For instance, postmodernism used to be only a vague theoretical perspective for me, yet it amazed me knowing that elderly people participate actively in public activities can be considered as view of postmodernism.
Most importantly, I realized filmmaking can make some impacts on people, portraying problems of society. Experience of BSA opened my eyes and led me rethink about my future major in college. I want use my skills and knowledge to help more people, so I will probably try a major with humanity and filmmaking combined instead of pursuing the dream of being an artist alone.
Learning sociology gives me a new perspective in seeing how the world works, and it also lets me care more about the vulnerability in the society. Thank you to my sociology teacher, Richard Driscoll, who gave me lots of inspiration such as filming the dancing in the park, which is interesting to British people, and recommenced lots of sociological books about the elderly.
By listening to his advice, “The Definition” eventually divides into two parts: one is about the elderly in nursing home and the other is about people dancing in the park. Also, there is many interviews in the documentary to give a more well-rounded perspective.
I would like to thank my Math teacher Michael Jin and my friend Franchaska, who helped me with the voice over. Also, thanks to my family members, especially my dear grandmother, who gave me lots of insights related to the issue of elderly.
I made this documentary just before the deadline, thus it’s not so perfect. I’ll probably elaborate some shots and reedit it in the future.
If you are interested, you can click the link below and watch it.
Teng Xun Video:https://v.qq.com/x/page/u0862usad2v.html
Bilibili:https://www.bilibili.com/video/av38188271?from=search&seid=10452775157822232568