Would British Children Suit Chinese Education?

Is the Chinese education system, which comes with long school days and tough discipline, suitable for British children?

18:13 04 August 2015

A BBC documentary aimed to find the answer through an experiment that is carried out at the Bohunt School in Liphook where fifty children in year nine lived under a completely different regime – one that is run by Chinese teachers.

 

The pupils were made to wear a special uniform and started the school at 07:00 and took lessons that were focused on note-taking and repetition. They also had to clean their classroom and participate in group exercises.

 

Reports confirmed that by the second day of the study, the pupils were behaving badly – disengaged with the lessons, chatting, and not listening to their teachers. It was also observed that Chinese teaching methods did not compliment teenage British culture and values. 

However, their behaviours have improved as the weeks passed due to the support of the Bohunt’s pastoral staff and a slight shift towards a teaching approach more recognisable to the pupils.

 

One of the students, 15-year-old Rosie Lunskey, said: “I'm a normal teenager - I like my sleep and my freedom. But I traded it all in for more school than sleep each day, for four weeks with pushy teachers, all while wearing a completely atrocious tracksuit for almost 12 hours a day.

 

The project wasn't what I expected - I had envisioned something like normal school but maybe with a little more homework or a silent classroom.

 

That is most definitely not what I got. It felt like we had no say in our education and what the teachers said went.

 

Acting like robots was the right way to go. For me, it was something I found difficult to get used to. I'm used to speaking my mind in class, being bold, giving ideas, often working in groups to advance my skills and improve my knowledge.”