I was a member of 2016-2017 TCLP exchange cohort and one of my primary goals was to find a sister school for my home school, Xindu No.1 Middle School, in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. With the help of my TCLP contact person, Elise Villemez, I got a lot information about many American schools that were interested in a sister school in China, one of which was River Bluff High School, in Columbia, South Carolina.
I sent emails to all the contact persons of those schools interested in finding a sister school in China, and we exchanged our expectations and goals for the sister school relationship. Finally, I, together with Rebecca Feng, the Mandarin teacher of River Bluff High School, SC, U.S.A, found that our two schools had much in common.
Ms. Feng came to visit my home school in person last summer. On July 26, 2017, Ms. Feng had a detailed talk with my vice principal, Ms. Lei Ping, who in charge of the foreign affairs office of my school. We made some preliminary steps to start the contact and communication between the students of our two schools.
Since September 2017, the students at our schools have engaged in activities including video-chatting, observing the engineering and art classes live through Skype, mailing small presents and cards to students at the partner school and making videos to expressing good wishes for holidays, including Chinese New Year.
In March 2018, Ms. Feng shared with us that her township board of education permitted her school to organize a visiting group of teachers and students to visit my school in the April of 2019. My vice principal has also said that the leadership committee of my school agreed to the idea of visiting River Bluff High School late this year. We believe that our two schools will finally sign the agreement of sister school relationship following these visits.
Great thanks to TCLP for helping my school find a potential sister school in the United States.