CHINA
In July 2009 Bay House Mr. Potter and Mr. Hall went to Shanghai, China to strengthen the link between our school and the Ling Ling High School. Mr. Hall had already visited the school in Shanghai and set up a link last autumn.
Since this initial visit Mandarin learners at Bay House and pupils in Shanghai have exchanged pen friend letters and a collaborative project with the English department called "A day in the life of." has been launched.
The visit this summer aimed to investigate ways of developing collaborative projects. It was extremely successful on all levels with both schools looking to work on a series of projects which will include the continuation of the successful English project "A Day in the Life of", a Geography project using the theme "How environmentally friendly is our school?" and a Mathematics project based on the theme "In what ways are we similar, in what ways are we different?"
The results of some of this collaborative work will be posted on the website later in the year.
In addition to this the teaching of Mandarin is being extended and pen friend letters will be continued this year. Mr. Matthias has set up a school blog and will be developing this link in the coming months.
Ling Ling High school is situated in the south west of the city. It is one of the very few schools in China to specialize in fencing. It has similarities to Bay House in that pupils start at the age of 11. They study a broad range of subjects including Mathematics, English, Geography, Science and Chinese of course! The main foreign languages taught in China apart from English are Japanese and Korean. Chinese pupils complete a compulsory exam, the zhongkao in a number of subjects in year 10. This is similar to our GCSEs. They can then choose to stay on at school to take the demanding gaokao exam which opens the door to university.You can check out the school's website here .
Shanghai itself is a fascinating, bustling city of 21 million people. It is a city of very contrasting faces where the ultra modern sits along side the traditional and yet neither seems out of place.
In March 2010 pupils from Bay House School will have the opportunity to visit Shanghai and Ling Ling High School to see this amazing place for themselves.
Photographs courtesy Mr Hall