Written Policy Creation

Profile

Beijing World Youth Academy (BWYA) is an independent, international, day school located in Beijing. Founded in 2001 with a small cohort of students studying the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, it has now grown into a large K-12 school with over 1100 students. BWYA has developed a reputation for academic excellence coupled with a strong sense of community. We educate students with English and Chinese as the main language of instruction, as well as with a commitment to the Chinese government education policies for national students. BWYA is authorised with International Baccalaureate Organisation (IB), Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), and accredited by Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The school is also a member of Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS) and East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS).

Mission

Beijing World Youth Academy strives to provide members of our community excellent learning opportunities that incorporate critical investigation, exposure to different cultural perspectives and assessment against objective criteria. Our mission is to develop principled, open-minded thinkers who are capable of integrating with diverse international communities and who are empowered to shape their environs for the improvement of quality of life for themselves and others.

Values

As a school community, these are our values:

Compassion: We respect and empathise with the rights, opinions, culture and feelings of others.
Trust: We believe that honesty, integrity and reliability in ourselves and others, forms the cornerstone of our community.
Solidarity: We value harmony and oneness while recognising the individuality of each person in our community.
Collaboration: We recognise that the development of the student is the shared responsibility between the student, the family and the school.

Schoolwide Learner Outcomes

We have adopted the International Baccalaureate ® (IB) Learner Profile, which describes a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond academic success, as our Schoolwide Learning Outcomes as part of our commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves, others and the world around them.

As learners we strive to be:

Inquirers: We nurture our curiosity, developing skills for inquiry and research. We know how to learn independently and with others. We learn with enthusiasm and sustain our love of learning throughout life.
Knowledgeable: We develop and use conceptual understanding, exploring knowledge across a range of disciplines. We engage with issues and ideas that have local and global significance.
Thinkers: We use critical and creative thinking skills to analyse and take responsible action on complex problems. We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.
Communicators: We express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups.
Principled: We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
Open-minded: We critically appreciate our own cultures and personal histories, as well as the values and traditions of others. We seek and evaluate a range of points of view, and we are willing to grow from the experience.
Caring: We show empathy, compassion and respect. We have a commitment to service, and we act to make a positive difference in the lives of others and in the world around us.
Risk-takers: We approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change.
Balanced: We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives — intellectual, physical, and emotional — to achieve well-being for ourselves and others. We recognise our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live.
Reflective: We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience. We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development.

Rationale

This document provides a set of principles to which all school decisions should adhere and provides direction and guidance in the creation, documentation, maintenance and implementation of school policy in general.

Introduction

Without an explicit set of principles upon which to ground policy, an organisation risks responding to situations erratically and potentially in a way that is harmful or restrictive to members of its community. Further, criticism or support of the organisation's practices risks becomes arbitrary, making it difficult for stakeholders to meaningfully reflect on policy effectiveness or to suggest ameliorative amendments to existing policy.

Further, without clear, accurate and standard documentation of policy (i.e., written policies), members of an organisation are less likely to implement policy correctly.

This document addresses these issues by:

Stipulating a set of ideological principles, ordered by priority, to which all our policies should adhere.
Defining a clear and common structure for our written policies.

Terms Used

In reading this document the terms school policy and written policy should be distinguished as follows:

School Policy: The set of practices formally recognised by the school community as appropriate reactions to situations that may be reasonably expected to arise during the running of the school programmes.
Written Policy: A document (such as this) that is maintained by the school community and that motivates, describes and explains school policy and its implementation.

Guiding Principles

All school policy is based on the following ideological principles, presented in order of decreasing priority.

School policy ensures that:

We provide a physically safe and hygienic environment for all members of the school community.
The students we admit receive a sound education. Specifically, policy ensures that we demonstrably equip our students with knowledge and skills necessary for independent learning and critical thinking.
We provide meaningful, accurate and precise assessments of student work.
We are tolerant and inclusive towards all members of the school community.
Members of the school community adhere to social norms and socially acceptable behaviour while representing the school community.
Policy ensures that the school addresses any special needs of members of the school community where possible and openly states that we are not in a position to do so otherwise.

Using the Guiding Principles

All decisions made during the creation and implementation of school policy must adhere to the ideological principles stated in this section unless adherence would entail non adherence to an ideological principle of greater priority in the list.
Any extant school policy that can be shown to go against the ideological principles or their order of priority must be dropped or amended.
Policy adherence to the ideological principles is primarily the responsibility of the school principals and coordinators.

Policy and Implementation

Written Policy

Audience

Although all members of our school community have access to our written policies, the intended audience is the set of (adult) administrators responsible for implementing the respective policy.

Language

For the sake of consistency, our policies are to be written in standard English using British spelling and grammar. Language used should be formal, precise, simple and in the first person.

Structure

Our written policies are to have the following basic structure:

Rationale

A description of the general purpose of the document.

Introduction

Background information that may make reading the document easier. The introduction may flesh out the purpose of the document, explain terms that are used in a way that may otherwise be ambiguous and discuss the structure of the document.

Guiding Principles

A set of ideological principles to be adhered to. These principles should motivate the decisions made and provide guidance in situations not explicitly covered.

Policy and Implementation

A detailed description of school policy being documented, split up into logically contained subsections. Situations that may be expected to arise frequently or potentially have severe consequences should be addressed, members of the school community responsible for taking action should be identified, and steps to be followed in reaction should be clearly outlined.

Questions and Answers

A less formal set of questions and answers that focus on correct understanding and implementation of the school policy, particularly on areas that are common pitfalls.

References

A list of documents referenced in the written policy, if necessary.

Redundancy

Information presented in a written policy is not to be presented in other written policies. Where there is overlap in information presented, a decision should be made as to which written policy the content most correctly belongs and references to that content should be placed in the appropriate places of the other written policies.

Contradiction

Any information that is found to be contradictory within or between policies must be removed or rectified.

Contractions, acronyms and jargon

Contractions, acronyms and jargon are to be avoided as much as possible in the written policies. Where contractions, acronyms and jargon serve a purpose, such as to improve the readability of a written policy, they are to be explained in the introduction.

Implementation

Responsibility

Principals, programme coordinators and other school leaders and administrators are responsible for the creation and maintenance of our written policies.

Practice

Maintenance sessions, during which feedback, criticism and suggestions are elicited from members of the school community, are to be scheduled into the academic year calendar. Written policies are to be updated based on the maintenance sessions.

Questions and Answers

What does it mean for the written policies to be written in the first person?: Instead of referring to the school as BWYA or "the school" we can simply write "we". This reduces clumsiness and improves readability.
What if I disagree with a school policy?: Your feedback, criticism and suggestions are highly valued. You have the opportunity to participate in the policy maintenance sessions scheduled into the academic year calendar and thus influence the evolution of school policy. As a professional teacher, administrator or volunteer working at our school, however, your support in implementing a school policy, regardless of whether you agree with it, is expected.