Whittle School & Studios Teachers on Shenzhen Campus (Part 1)


David Ho   |   April 3, 2019

View: Whittle School & Studios Teachers on Shenzhen Campus (Part 2)

We believe that every school is a big family. An encouraging “family environment” produces many inspiring moments for young children. For every school, teachers play one of the most crucial roles. And it is with this belief that we are seeking to build the very best faculty team. 

Our previous article walked you through our highly selective recruitment process and introduced members of founding faculties of Shenzhen and DC campus. 

Recruitment in Shenzhen campus is nearly finished. Of the teachers that we have appointed, over 80% hold a master’s degree or above, 70% have more than 4 years of teaching experience. Chinese teachers mainly come from top-level international schools, some join us from reputable public schools, the rest are those highly brilliant young fresh graduates from first-tier universities here in China and beyond. Foreign teachers mostly are from the US and the UK. They have at least 2-years teaching experience with many having been in the field of education for over 10 years. 

Here in this article, we are excited to introduce to you 10 teachers from our amazing faculty group. They are professional, they are charismatic, and Whittle School & Studios is all the more impressive with them on board.

Wu Hu Ph.D.

Highly proficient in Chinese, English and Korean, Dr. Wu Hu is one of the excellent candidates that joined us in our early recruitment stage. He went to Sungkyunkwan University on a full scholarship where he attained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Following that, he started to work as a research fellow at the Department of Energy and Power Engineering at Tsinghua University. He will join Whittle School this coming September as a middle school STEM teacher.

Bo Siwen

Whittle School & Studios attaches great importance to creative arts. A young yet experienced independent artist with a drama education background, Bo Siwen will join us as our performance arts teacher. She graduated from the University of London with a master’s degree in Musical Theatre. Whilst abroad, she further learned and performed drama in Amsterdam and New York. She has also worked as actor, translator, choreographer and director in a series of musicals and dramas. Siwen is excited to explore the art world together with her students at Whittle School & Studios.

Elaine Eastwood

Ms. Eastwood is a Reggio Emilia-trained early childhood educator with 15 years of experience teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. Prior to joining Whittle, she worked for a decade as an early childhood educator at a renowned international school in Southeast Asia. She is highly regarded for her ability to develop the natural curiosity of young children, helping them become confident and self-directed learners.

Wallen Mphepo Ph.D.

Dr. Mphepo obtained his Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in the U.S, Sweden, and England, respectively. Having worked in the field of STEM education for nine years, Dr. Mphepo is well-recognized in the technology industry and also in academia. His ground-breaking technological achievements have been featured by mainstream international media outlets, including TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. Dr. Mphepo also serves as a reviewer for multiple scientific journals.

Yuan Xianglei

Yuan Xianglei has several years of experience in teaching Mathematics with great success at Wuhan Foreign Languages School. His students have gone to Peking, Renmin and Tsinghua Universities in China, as well as Oxford and Cambridge in the UK and Columbia University in the US. They have also gained distinction in Mathematics Olympiads and similar competitions, More recently he has been involved in work with the “One Belt and One Road” initiative in designing Mathematics’ courses, and has rich experience and profound insight into personalized teaching.

Jeanette Miao

Jeanette Miao is a passionate and dedicated global educator. She has a diverse background from living in the USA, Hong Kong, Germany and China, with English being her mother tongue. Following graduating in education from Biola University in California, Jeanette has eight years and counting of valuable experience in the educational sector. As a life-long educator, she stresses the importance of encouraging children to become self-motivated, independent, confident, responsible, analytical and creative individuals.

Christopher Brandt

A dual citizen of the UK and USA, Christopher Brandt is an outstanding music player, as well as a professional and passionate music teacher. More than 30 years ago, he began to work as a private music tutor. Later, he taught in schools and educational institutions in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. He was the Principal Bass at the Hong Kong Philharmonic and has performed in Denmark, Italy and other countries. He has a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s from New England Conservatory. He plays bass, piano, tuba, saxophone and guitar. He enjoys hiking, fencing, and tennis in his leisure time.

Wang Lu

Wang Lu graduated from School of Management, Zhejiang University. He was enrolled in the first cohort of “Global Entrepreneurship Program”. He has translated two published books as the main translator for Creating Innovators and Managing Innovation. After two years of teaching in the Teach for China programme, he joined Hangzhou Chinese International School as a Middle Years IB teacher and later took on a leadership role for Community Project – a service-learning program. Additionally, he co-founded the Joyman Djembe Academy in Hangzhou and two different innovation camp programs for teenagers. He also participated in Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom in the summer of 2018. Wang Lu believes that education is about “helping each student discover one’s own power for creation”.

Wang Wenjia

Wang Wenjia was born in an artistic family. Her great-grandfather was a famous art collector in the Republican period of China. Influenced by her family, Wenjia was admitted to the middle school attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and was subsequently admitted to the Department of Traditional Chinese Painting graduating as the top performing student. Later, she obtained a master’s degree in Art from the People’s University of China.  “I pay more attention to the beginning of students’ dreams than to their achievements. In the process of understanding the students’ inner world, I find so many shining souls.” On the basis of teaching students precise professional art knowledge, she pays more attention to guiding students to think independently and express freely. The reason why she joined Whittle is that her ideal of caring for life, diversity of teaching are in total alignment to Whittle. She hopes to allow art to ‘nourish’ and enrich students’ lives.

Li Zheng Ph.D.

Li Zheng holds a Bachelor’s degree from Fudan University and a doctoral degree from Tsinghua University. He was involved in world-class experimental research, where, through autonomous learning, he successfully developed a high-performance methodology for computational research that benefitted his whole research team. His experience with interdisciplinary research instills in him a strong resonance towards the interdisciplinary and project-based educational concepts adopted by Whittle. As a father and a practitioner, Mr. Li strongly agrees with the personalized and experience-based teaching philosophy Whittle upholds and has thus decided to join the Whittle team. Conducting ground-breaking interdisciplinary research driven by interest is not only Mr. Li’s source of happiness but also the capability he expects to bring to future generations through his teaching at Whittle.

Whittle Parent Information Events will be held on irregular basis in Shenzhen. Welcome to join one of the event and have a face-to-face communication with the team.

Long press the following QR code to sign up:

Address and contact information:

Chinese Name:  荟同学校

Place Address:  18/F CM Port Building, Industrial 3rd Road, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518067深圳市南山区工业三路招商局港口大厦18层

Website:  Whittle School & Studios’s Website

Place Phone:  +86 (755) 26691818

Email:  [email protected]