Alessandro is a highly accomplished educator and designer. He hold a Master’s of Education and he is PreK-12 certified Art teacher. He has also served as an Associate Professor at Raffles University, an Asian-based university specializing in Design. Alessandro is particularly passionate about the intersection of traditional and modern media and the role that education can play in bridging cultures.

 

Alessandro became an Associate Professor through extensive research and on-the-ground application of Multiple Intelligence combined with Project/Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Learning-by-Doing. He has also spent several years working in the e-Learning field and has developed smart platforms.

 

Alessandro has received numerous certifications for his expertise in design evaluation, project-based learning in the arts, and teaching critical thinking through art. He has been teaching art and design in China since 2004, and has held various leadership roles such as Program Director, Director, and Head of Department.

 

Thanks to his proven leadership skills, Alessandro has successfully helped colleagues develop and be promoted while ensuring that students benefit from a cohesive team and are accepted by some of the most prestigious art, design colleges and universities in the world.

 

Alessandro’s career began as Program Director of the Graphic Design and Interactive Media program at Raffles Design Institute attached to Changchun University. Ten years later, he moved to the China HQ in Dong Hua University in Shanghai. During his time at Raffles Education Corporation, he served as Director for International Relationship, Director of the Corporate Training project, and Founding Member of Raffles Academy.

 

Currently, he serves the Senior Leadership team as Deputy Head of Studios after having served for 4 years as Head of the Creative Arts & Design Department at HUITONG SCHOOL in Shenzhen, South China.

Lucy Donkin grew up in Lincolnshire, England. She graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a BA Honours in Sport Development and Inclusion; she then went on to University of East London to gain her PGCE in Special Educational Needs and Physical Education. During her time in London, Lucy taught children who had a multitude of different disabilities as well as toddlers and nursery aged children sport. This is where her love for Early Years sport developed.  

In 2014, Lucy moved to Cairo, where she was an Early Years and Key Stage 1 P.E. teacher for over 4 years. Lucy also worked closely with the SEN department developing interventions to support children struggling with social and emotional challenges through sport. Lucy then moved to Hangzhou, China to become the Assistant Head of Boarding at Wellington College.  

Callum Donkin was brought up in Beverley, East Yorkshire. Throughout his teen years, his love for sport developed into a true passion for rugby and kayaking. Callum achieved his BSc in Sports Coaching, Development and Fitness from the University Leeds Beckett. He started his career teaching Physical Education in a school designed for children who had emotional, social and behavioural challenges. In 2015, Callum went to Cairo, Egypt where he continued his work with children who had special educational needs as well as a P.E. teacher. After three years in the desert Callum then moved to Hangzhou, China where he was the school’s SENCo for the last 3 years.

 

Callum is an avid sportsman who has played rugby at both semi-professional and professional level. In his spare time, he also kayaks to a high level, kayaking down Grade 5 white water rivers.

Weiyi received both her Bachelor and Master of Fine Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, majoring in visual communication design. Her study and practices in art and design involve interdisciplinary techniques, mediums, forms, thoughts, etc. Taking advantage of such art making processes, she discusses issues concerned with culture and behavior, which inspires her with the belief that the social responsibility of an artist always has to do with education. Weiyi introduced her methodology in art and design to museum education, and developed public learning programs for the Sea World Culture and Arts Center. She successfully held a series of project-based learning events and experiences on the subject of local history for school kids and adults in collaboration with schools, artists, and scholars.

Katherine Zhan received Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from Beijing Normal University and continued her educational pursuit at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with M.Ed. in school counseling. Before joining Whittle, she worked as a school counselor in the US and China for 7 years. She believes that every student is unique and bounded for success given appropriate and abundant guidance. 

Swing Liu studied for her Bachelor’s in English at the China University of Political Science and Law and for her Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. She worked as the College Counsellor at the Houde Academy in Shenzhen and founded the Shenzhen Career Development Association. She joins Whittle as our College Counsellor.

Having graduated from China Central Academy of Fine Arts and earned the Excellent Graduate Student Awards in Beijing, Yaan graduated and continued to study public art. During her studies, she went to the Netherlands and studied at Willem de Kooning Academy as an exchange student. She earned her master’s degree in arts in teaching and received a K-12 Visual Arts Professional Educator License in the state of Illinois. She has travelled to over 20 countries in Europe and North America and enjoyed every minute of it. She keeps an open mind to accepting different cultures and embraces having a reflective attitude while teaching to remain critical. Her students are exposed to landscape design, fiber art, digital art, sculpture, collage, painting, etc. She also combines writing with weaving to inspire students to express themselves.

Tony Ng was born and raised in Hong Kong. He holds a Bachelor degree from the University of Washington and a Master degree from the City University of Seattle. He specializes in business studies, such as finance and business administration. Before joining Huitong School, he had worked in a private high school in Seattle and an international school in Shenzhen for many years. As a college counselor, he hopes to be a mentor to help students to find their own interests and goals, to motivate students to improve and make contributions to the world with their own influences.

Audrey Ma received her bachelor's degree from the State University of New York and a master’s in art history from the University of Kansas. With a passion for community service and library, she has worked as a cataloger intern at the Roberson Museum & Science Center and participated in the “Rare Book” project at the Library of KU. After graduation, she worked as a librarian at an international school in Hangzhou and helped to build the school library. She believes that information literacy is a key to the student's success, and in every book there’s an inspiration. Her goal is to build a library that helps facilitate reading and learning and is also a center for information sharing and space with a sense of the community.

Tamara Jeggels graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cape Town. She has worked in Shenzhen for three years, teaching a variety of age groups and subjects. She is currently working towards obtaining her Master’s in Early Childhood Education through Moreland University in the United States.

Cheng Chen graduated from the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, majoring in Chinese painting. After seven years of professional learning, she has a solid foundation and academic background owing to her profound artistic accomplishments. She is a learner with a spirit for exploration. Her works have developed a new visual form beyond the traditional dimension, which has benefited from her global perspective. She studied at the Royal University College of Fine Arts and held an exhibition of Chinese paintings in the art museum. After traveling around the world, she felt the energy strongly contained in traditional Chinese art. She integrates the splendid traditions of this thousand-year ancient state into contemporary art education so that children can truly have a global perspective after absorbing local “nourishment.”

Matthieu Le Noen was born In Nantes, France. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Fine Arts from L’Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts of Angers after studying History of Art at University of Nantes. A multi-disciplinary artist, he has strong technical skills in diverse media such as painting, photography, video editing and graphic design. Making, experimenting and teaching Art have always been part of his life. Matthieu has been teaching Art in China since 2014. He taught Art and Design to primary students in Hangzhou and also prepared high school students to enter the China Academy of Art. He arrived in Shenzhen in 2019 where he and his students have been awarded for one of his favourite elective classes : Recyling Art. His classes are designed to enhance creativity, whole-student learning and personal development. Matthieu speaks French, English, German and Chinese.

Judy Wang graduated from Central Saint Martins, awarded as a distinguished graduate for her master's degree. In 2014, she went to Kenya and gave art lesson with great passion for art education. In the same year, she set up a shadow puppet animation workshop at the British Museum, and led the team to convey the aesthetics and production of shadow puppet animation. In 2017, she went to Fukuoka, Japan to participate in an art residency program, exploring the possibility and diversity of animation images and co-organizing exhibitions with artists from all over the world. After that, she received the seed fund project of the UK government and executed her art project. Her artistic concept aims to focus on the connection and interaction of children's psychology and animation, she hopes to improve creativity and self-driving through contemporary art education.

Rok Hozjan is a double bass, bass guitar and piano player from Slovenia. His music experience covers classical music, jazz, world music, pop music and rock music. In Europe, Rok is not only a music teacher, but also a well-known artist. As a double bassist he is a member of Quintet Piazzolleky Tango Quintet. He played in numerous bands and orchestras like Terrafolk, Kapobanda, SFK Symphony Orchestra, Mandolin orchestra of Ljubljana, Cantabile orchestra and collaborated with famous artists like Vlatko Stefanovski and Marko Hatlak amongst others. Rok is an active recording session bassist with his work featured in numerous albums, singles and major projects with many of which he toured the whole Europe and China.

Rok Hozjan has been teaching music since 2009 in European professional music schools and provides advanced music master courses for students aged 6-18. He graduated with a master's degree from the University of Ljubljana, the oldest and largest institution of higher learning in Slovenia. In the past decade, he has accumulated rich music teaching and management experience in Logatec Music School, Pionirski Dom Theatre, Montessori Academy in Ljubljana, RDFZ King College in Hangzhou and other schools.

Ms Erin Lee is a string player and a pianist. She has a bachelor’s degree in Viola performance and composition from the Conservatory of Music at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea. Erin is completing her master’s degree at Conservatory Brno in conducting. She taught at Korean International School in Shenzhen for 10 years. In addition to classroom teaching, Erin will be directing orchestras at Whittle. Erin is trilingual and speaks Chinese, Korean and English.

Lauren has studied music since childhood, she graduated from the Central Academy of Drama with a Bachelor's degree in Opera Performance, and University College London with a master's degree in Music education. During her undergraduate study, she performed several operas and successfully created different characters. They include Despina in ‘Cosi fan tutte’; The three ladies in ‘Die Zauberflöte ’,and so on. During post graduate period, her research interests were authenticity and music participation in family.

 

Lauren has taught many primary and junior music classes, including music theory, solfeggio, and musical. At the same time, she also has rich experience in vocal music courses for high school students. The vocal music students she has tutored have been admitted to well-known universities in China with excellent scores, including Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Communication University of China, Beijing Film Academy, etc.

Evgenii was born in Siberia, Russia. There he studied vocal, percussion and piano at Surgut Children’s Music School, and at Surgut Music College. During his school years he participated in many concerts as a singer and won prizes in vocal competitions. He received a bachelor degree in vocal and music drama theater performance at Maimonid Moscow State Classical Academy in 2017. Evgenii taught vocal in Private Music School in Moscow for 2 years, and then continued teaching in Fine Art, Shenzhen. In 2020-2022 Evgenii taught Music Drama classes in Bilingual International School, Shenzhen to primary school students. Evgenii has an experience in teaching vocal private, vocal ensemble and music drama classes to students from kindergarten through university. Evgenii’s students and ensembles won prizes at vocal competitions in Shenzhen. He also composes neo classical music. He released an album of his compositions in 2016. 

Zimin Fan graduated from the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulon Provence Méditerranée in Toulon, France, specialising in piano performance, and obtained three Master's degrees in piano performance, chamber music and piano accompaniment in France. She studied with Ricardo Castro, the first prize of the Leeds International Piano Competition, at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne, Switzerland.

 

During her studies in France, she performed in many concerts and festivals such as Les Nuits Pianistique d'Aix-en-Provence, Liszt en Provence, and as soloist or duo at the Opera de Marseille, Salle de Cortot in Paris and other concert halls.

 

In Switzerland, she started her personal music teaching experience at the music school of the municipal hall and has been working as a music teacher and piano teacher at international schools in the country since then. Zimin enjoys her time with students of all ages and believes that every child can give back to society the beauty of music through music education.

Lena Fu entered the Xinghai Conservatory of Music with the first rank in her major. She received her Master of Arts degree in Orchestral Performance, specializing in Western percussion, and has a deep study of Western orchestral and jazz-oriented percussion. She has been invited to perform in special concerts at the EU West Coast Music Festival, Hong Kong Music Season, PAS-International Percussion Festival, etc. She worked as a percussion teacher at Xinghai Conservatory of Music, and was also an examiner for the Xinghai Conservatory Social Arts Examination.She has tutored students to achieve excellent results in provincial, municipal and national competitions. She has been awarded as an excellent instructor by IPEA.

Liao Ran was educated both in China and in New York City, U.S., where he was trained as an architect, engineer and designer at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts on a full merit based scholarship. He worked as a curator, architect, and educator prior joining Whittle, and he is an associate member of the American Institute of Architect. In his classroom, Liao Ran encourages students to discover innovative ideas by taking closer look at things and taking actions, while being tech-savvy and crafty. He has led project-based learning (PBL) classrooms to rethink environments and beings through lights, sounds, materials, motions, robotics, and visions. He has co-designed his own subject classes in Fabrication, Electronics, and Robotics at high school level, and have published and exhibited in both China and the U.S.. With his wide range of personal interest and research in digital fabrication, wood and metal working, casting, electronics, printmaking, programming, and digital interface, Liao Ran chooses to keep exploring the potential of these activities with students.

Wang Minyi obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Shanghai University of Sport, with a major in Physical Training, focused on badminton and basketball. After he graduated, he worked at Shanghai Pinghe School and RDFZ King’s College Hangzhou. At both Pinghe and RDFZ he taught a range of ages, from primary to high school, in Physical education classes. He was also head coach for both badminton and basketball. The RDFZ basketball team went from little knowledge of basketball to winning the HISAC tournament, Hangzhou’s largest competition.

 

He has a wide range of interest in sports in which he holds certificates for. He also has IB teaching certification. His passion as a teacher is to help students to build up skills in sports as well as providing the tools to practice a healthy lifestyle.