CEP (Character Education Partnership) is a US based non-profit organisation committed to fostering effective character education. Each year, CEP recognises annual Promising Practices by schools and districts in the United States and elsewhere that implement unique and specific strategies in character education. In 2015, YWIES Shanghai was the only school in China that received the title with two Character Development Projects – Business Fair and Movie Competition.

At Yew Wah, every student attends Character Development course aiming at challenging students and teachers to become holistic individuals who are conscious of personal character and how it affects those around them. The course closely looks at seven values that embody what Yew Wah stands for. The students are not only lectured on the value, but are also required to complete various tasks where that value can be reflected.

One of the winning projects is Yew Wah Business Fair, which was designed to deepen students’ understanding of “Perseverance” – the theme of Character Development class. It took the students about 15 days to prepare for this half-day event. They needed to come up with a business plan, get approval from the organising committee, and attend different preparation meetings. A few days prior to the Fair, they started to promote their shops through different channels, posters, flyers, mini-website, tweeters, etc. Throughout the activity, students could truly understand how difficult it was to build a business from scratch and sometimes they needed to hang in there just a bit longer than they could take.

Another winning project is Yew Wah Movie Competition. In the competition, all the participating movies must be produced by students on their own, with the theme of “Gratefulness”, the virtue being taught in Character Development classes. All these works must be viewed and rated by a panel of judges, as well as through online polling system to compete for a variety of awards, just like any major movie festival around the world. The students showed a lot of enthusiasm and attention making movies to interpret life and death, friendship, family, love and affection.

Winning CEP Promising Practice Award is a reward for Yew Wah’s continuous efforts on character education, and it strengthens Yew Wah’s belief of “the foundation of education is the formation of character.”