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Michael Cormack
Head of Student Services
I am Michael Cormack. I have 17 years of experience in education and media, and have served as an English literature teacher in Chinese and British schools and universities. I have a BA (Hons) in English Studies & Politics, and a PGDE (Secondary English) from Aberdeen University. I was previously the VP of the middle school at an international school in Jiangsu, mainly responsible for curriculum development, extracurricular activities and assessment, as well as teacher management. I am a regular contributor to well-known international media outlets and have written book reviews about China for many years.

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Matt Dowling
English, I&S Teacher
Hi, my name is Matt Dowling, I´m from Canada, and I am currently an I&S and English MYP teacher at CISK. My educational philosophy is centered around place-based education. Place-based education helps students explore their local community and make connections to IB values and the wider world. I received my Masters of Teaching from OISE, University of Toronto. I am certified by the Ontario College of Teachers to teach Grade 4-10 students and I have additional qualifications in French as a Second Language, Primary Education, Special Education, and IB MYP Language and Literature (Level 1). In my spare time, I cycle, play music and enjoy exploring China's live music scene.

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Amanda West
PYP Homeroom Teacher
Hey, my name is Amanda, and I´m from USA. I graduated from Colorado State University in USA with a Master of Teaching and Learning. I have over 10 years of teaching experience for students in USA, South Korea and China. I obtained ESL, TESOL and Teacher License. I excel at developing, designing and implementing English programme in alignment with International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program Standards. Furthermore, I can provide diverse teaching plans and programme to include reading, listening, writing and speaking.

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Bryan Patrick
PYP Homeroom Teacher
Hi, my name is Bryan. I graduated from Kean University in BS. Management Science. I have taught social science and English in the US for 8 years and in China for 14 years. I am familiar with both education system in the US and in the international schools in China and I am experienced in guiding students to higher English level of Mainstream English education curriculum. My experience of learning and teaching social science also helps the students to develop abilities of solving complex problems in real life.

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Simon Dorn
PYP Homeroom Teacher
HI, I am Simon from UK. I have a bachelor degree (Honours) in English Literature and Creative Writing, University of Cambridge ESOL, UK. I have 20 years teaching experience for students. Been responsible for delivering English language lessons to Kindergarten and K12 aged students, the focus of which is vocabulary, development, communicative skills, and phonics. I am familiar with assessments and providing feedback on students’ performance. I attained certifications of IELTS Certified Examiner; Occupational English Test (OET) Interlocutor; Site Management Education and Training Scheme (SMETS).

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Mariia Kurochkina
Music Specialist
I am Mariia, I graduated from Mussorgsky Ural State Conservatory (Russia) as an opera singer and a Master of Music Specialist. I have 4 years of experience in music education and over 5 years’ experience as an opera singer in different cities in China. I strive to cultivate children´s love towards music and art, I think music is a great medium that helps develop our children´s creativity and mindfulness. I hope my experience as a musician can be a good example for students, which I think it will contribute to their development in the field of musical art.

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Aleksandr (Alex) Kargaltsev
PYP Homeroom Teacher
Hello, I am Alex, I am a Master of Children's Education in Art, and hold TEFL and TESOL certificate. I have 4 years of experience with teaching children, I love working with them, learn from them and teach them. I had my little drama classes, exploring nature classes and I know how to introduce a new interesting topic to a baby.

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Derek Ocean
English, I&S Teacher
My name is Derek. I'm from America, and I've been living in China teaching English for 5 years. I have experience teaching children as well as adults at a university. I strive for patience and good communication in the classroom with my students. My teaching style is to inspire students for self-studying and developing intrinsic motivation for learning. I also enjoy motivating students to think critically and logically about a wide range of topics.

I am Ashveer, I completed a bachelor’s of education degree at the University of South Africa. I majored in Mathematics and Financial Accounting and minored in Natural science. I have completed the international TEFL/TESOL course and various IB MYP and DP training courses. My teaching philosophy is to make a difference in the lives of students by integrating academic teaching, global and real-life context and general life skills into my classroom. I believe that teaching is a vital profession because teachers shape young students into future professional adults of tomorrow. My motto for education is “Changing the world one student at a time. To teach is to touch lives forever.”

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Samson Shahzad
Art Teacher
I am Samson Shahzad, I am associated with fine art work/teaching more than nine years. In fact Art is my passion, I love to teach different art techniques and genres, and develop talented skills about fine art. I think my educational back ground is fully rich with fine art study and vast experience in fine art teaching on different levels. I always believe that Your Art work is reflection of your thoughts, it can communicate with millions when you are silent. Working at CISK as a visual art teacher, its great opportunity for me to teach IB course on different level and develop artistic skills in CISK students.

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Ashley Gurden
PYP Homeroom Teacher
I am Ashley. I graduated from University of Essex majored in Games Design. I moved to China in 2017, and began teaching a variety of students. After teaching both adults and children, I decided to specialize in primary years´ education. I started that journey in 2018 and moved into the IB system in 2019. Coupled with my teaching experience, I use my games design background to create innovative and interesting classes to capture my students´ learning desire. Over the past year, I have researched and experimented with TPRS, a language learning theory. With this method, my students are able to acquire grammatical knowledge, as opposed to memorizing.

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Alexander Crick
Music Teacher
Hi, I'm Alex Crick, a teacher of MYP music and rock band here at CISK. I've had the pleasure of teaching and playing music in various educational settings in the UK and China, and I am excited to continue this journey with IB. I believe that every student is an artist and has something unique to offer in the arts.
