School News Roundup
Middle School and Primary School Early Admissions Announced
Keystone Academy announced its early
admission decisions for its middle and
primary schools. Many eager parents and
applicants have heard from the Keystone
Admission Team now. These early birds
together with many more successful
applicants will join the Keystone community
in September 2014. The Keystone faculty
and staff are looking forward to welcoming
the students. Dean of Admission, Rachael
Beare, said she was excited with the quality
of the applications and pleased with the
student profile and community that has
been forming gradually through 2013 and
2014.
In preparation for Keystone’s first
academic year, the Curriculum Guides and
Community Handbook for both middle and
primary schools have been released. The
Guides provide detailed information for
each subject in each grade. The Community
Book is common for the whole school
detailing rules of conduct, shared values
and principles of the school and more.
Fifth Education Salon Introduced Bilingualism
16 January 2014: Bilingual immersion is one of three pillars of the Keystone academic model.
The Fifth Education Salon elaborated on its primary elements and its long-term educational
benefits. Keystone’s Head of Primary School and an expert in the field of bilingual immersion,
Mary Jew, led the session. She elaborated that bilingual education involved, “the processes of
teaching instruction and schooling to impart and help acquire general knowledge and develop
the power of reasoning and judgment in two languages to a very proficient level.”
Dr. Ji-Mei Chang from San Jose University, U.S. was also invited to help prospective parents
and applicants understand the benefits of dual-language
education. “Cognitive development and critical thinking are
deeply intertwined. Without proper cognitive skills, students
will drown in the mountains of information at their fingertips
because of the kind of access we have today. Relevancy and
reliability of information is taught from kindergarten these days
– this is critical thinking,” said Dr. Chang. Bilingual education
enables students to learn and absorb information in complex
ways thus pushing their cognitive development further. This
session was an eye-opener to many present and reinforced
Keystone’s strong emphasis on bilingual immersion.
70
The Keystone Magazine