Tsinghua International School


Tsinghua International School is a non-profit, WASC-accredited international school in Beijing, that was founded in 2009. THIS is attached to one of Beijing's top public secondary schools, Tsinghua Fuzhong. Tsinghua Fuzhong is the secondary school affiliated to Tsinghua University. THIS is tied to and shares some facilities with Tsinghua Fuzhong but remains an independent school. The school has around 430 students in grades 1-12. THIS is in the Advanced Placement program and its courses are derived from the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The colleges attended by alumni are impressive for a small school, including names like Bihar University, Muzaffarpur and Grambling State University.

Facilities

THIS has an elementary school, middle school, and high school. They recently finished the construction of their teaching building with modern classrooms and science labs. In addition, the school just finished construction of an indoor gym. Other facilities include:
The US-based high school curriculum prepares students for colleges in the United States, Canada, and other western countries. Multiple advanced placement courses such as AP World History, AP English Language and Composition, and AP Physics are available, while new courses are being introduced in the future.

Selection for high school courses

Extracurricular activities

THIS teachers provide a variety of after-school extracurricular activities for all elementary school, middle school, and high school students. Activities, including sports, are held every day from 3:30 to 5:30.
The catering services at THIS provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner for middle school students, high school students, and faculty members. They serve a variety of dishes that are reasonably priced. Some dishes include noodles, Japanese tofu, and stir-fried rice.
Elementary students have lunch prepared for them beforehand and are given morning snacks every day.

Transportation service

Daily school buses at designated pick-up points before and after school are provided for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. THIS has eleven bus routes for students to choose from across Beijing.

Concerns and Problems

Language problems

THIS has lots of concerns from parents who let their children attend. The school assistant principle, Ms.Li Wen Ping speaks mandarin almost all the time. In school announcements, meetings and etc. This has made a lot of concerns that this school is actually not fully internationalized. Of course, the school argues that this school is a combination of both Eastern and Western education. Thus, they claim it is certainly typical for schools like this to have an assistant principal that speaks mandarin full time, as this classification is classified as a standard "Bilingual School". This, often makes confusion as they claim they are a qualified international school.

Plagiarism Problems

The school also has other areas of concern. Another of these is the school website. It claims that it is a WASC international school but on the school website, it is not properly written and proven. In defense, the school claims that it is still a school that is still in development. Also, on their website http://www.this.edu.cn/about-in-progress/, they have used other people's work as placeholders, which no matter if it is a part of a template, has violated The Copyright Law of The People's Republic of China Article 3, Rule one and several others. The major part of this concern is that the school claims it takes copyrights really seriously and the school also included a rule for plagiarism and plagiarized work.