Because it is the end of term the school organised an activity day where each pupil chose one of the many activities to spend their day. Ten of us chose the Chinese activity where we spent the day learning Mandarin and about Chinese culture, this included writing our name in Chinese, painting Peking Opera masks and stuffing our faces with Chinese food, attempting to use chopsticks! The day has been very enjoyable and we now all know how to say greetings in Mandarin, numbers from 1-10 and colours. We are also all very accomplished at eating copius amounts of M&M's! A big thank you goes to Miss Pallut for organising the activities and for teaching us this very complicated language! Here are some photos and there are lots more at the bottom of the web page titled 'Chinese Day'.
has 1700 students and 117 staff. The students are divided into year groups known as Junior 1, 2 and 3 and Senior 1, 2 and 3.There are about 50-70 students in a class. Each student has their own small desk and chair and they are arranged in rows. The uniform consists of a white tracksuit with blue stripes for the older students or orange stripes for the younger students.
School day
The school day starts at and finishes at . For the senior students there are lessons every night from . There are 8 classes a day each lasting about 1 hour and it is the teachers that move classrooms rather than the students. There are 3 breaks during the morning. One break lasts 15 minutes and is for group exercises outside. All the students line up in rows in their classes and perform stretches to music. They have another break for eye exercises to stimulate their concentration. Lunch is a 2 hour break and students can eat in the school canteen, go home for lunch or buy food from the shops and stalls outside school. During lunch most students either complete homework or have a nap at their desk. In the afternoon there are 2 ten minute breaks. The students have several hours of homework every day and work very hard as they have exams every week in at least one subject and have very important exams at the end of each of the 2 terms. It is very important to perform well in the exams as students in the top 60% of the year pay less for their school fees. This motivates the students to work hard. At the end of Junior 3 and Senior 3 the students have extremely important exams to enable them to get into the next stage of education, as they may choose to change schools.
Year Schedule
There are 2 terms – September to the end of January, and March to the end of June. In February students have 3 weeks off school to celebrate the Chinese New Year. They also have a week off in May. And they have 8 weeks off in the summer.
Lessons
Students study Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Computing, Maths, English, Chinese, Art, Sport, Music and Social subjects. Lessons vary greatly in terms of teaching style, but are generally based around a key text book which ensures that all the necessary material for the exams is covered.Some teachers have a good knowledge of ICT and use it well to deliver lessons. Students work alone, in pairs and in small groups at times. In some lessons due to the large classes, the teacher has to present the lesson. The students seem very engaged with their studies and eager to learn. They clearly respect their teachers and stand up to greet them as they enter and bow to them. The students work hard and complete all work to a high standard. The students participate well in lessons and always stand up to volunteer an answer. Whilst I was visiting the school, I observed an Art lesson where students were doing paper cutting, a Music lesson where students learnt a traditional folk song and an English lesson where students prepared short dialogues. They were all excellent.
English
The level of English was very good and the students were very keen to practice it whilst I was visiting. They seemed fairly confident and not afraid to speak to me. They prepared their questions in advance by writing them down.The students have 9 to 12 lessons a week of English, whereas they only have 2 or 3 lessons a week of other subjects. English is considered very important as it seen as vital to finding a job and being successful. The students are very keen to come to
Scotland
and visit other English speaking countries to practice their English.
Extra Curricular activities
Every year there are two competitions to celebrate Chinese culture: dancing in May and singing in December. All the students participate and each class prepares a song or dance.
The students play table tennis, football and basketball. There are school teams for swimming, basketball and shooting with national competitions every year. There are 3 basketball teams in the district and
Xinying
Middle School
competes against them in local competitions.
Location
Students travel to school from all over
Kunming
and many cycle, walk, are driven by parents in cars or on motorbikes or electric mopeds. The students do not necessarily live close to the school as students can attend any secondary school in
Kunming
that they choose, as they have to pay fees. It costs about 800-1000 Yuan a year, which is about £50-65, if students are in the top 60% of their year in terms of their exam results. However for all other students, the fees are 6-8000 Yuan a year, which is about £400-540. Most secondary schools in
China
are fee paying.
The school is situated in the north of
Kunming
and is very much a city school. It is a courtyard style building on 5 floors with ponds, plants and trees in the central area. There is also a large sandy pitch, a running track and a basketball court. It has a pleasant atmosphere and is very light and bright.
Kunming
Kunming
is a beautiful city. It has 4 million people and feels very busy with lots of rickshaws, bikes, cars, electric mopeds, motorbikes and people walking. It feels very modern and has some lovely interesting architecture, as well as some older buildings. There is a pedestrianised shopping area with cafes, restaurants, and market stalls. The city has a historical centre with pagodas and typical Chinese gates. There are beautiful bhuddist and Taoist temples and mosques. There is a range of hills surrounding
Kunming
where there is a temple complex, as well as an enormous lake called
Dianchi
Lake
. The city is called the ‘
Eternal
Spring
City
’ as the temperature is about 20°C all year round with a generally blue sky. The city also has lots of trees, green parks and beautifully colourful flowers lining the roads. People sit outside everywhere and play cards, mahjong, local instruments, croquet, sing and even give massages.
Kunming
is in
Yunnan
province in southwest
China
and is home to 26 of the 50 ethnic groups in
China
. In
Kunming
there is a nationalities village which celebrates these different groups with typical buildings, dances, costumes, music and food. There is also a fantastic stage production called Dynamic Yunnan which brings together the musical and dancing traditions in an impressive display. The local people are very proud of their heritage and ethnic background and want to share it.
The food of the area is delicious as it is not too spicy but is very flavourful and light. Cross bridge noodles is the traditional dish which consists of a bowl of hot broth in which you put a selection of raw ingredients such as chicken, noodles and vegetables. Other specialities include
Yunnan
pancakes made from rice flour, goats cheese that can either be lightly fried or dried and then deep fried to resemble crisps. Meat and vegetable dishes are not generally combined and in a restaurant you typically order 4 or 5 dishes for 2 people consisting of: rice, soup, a vegetable dish such as cabbage or aubergine, a chicken or beef dish and a fish dish. They also use local wild flowers and hundreds of varieties of mushrooms.
Yunnan
is a diverse province with the high altitude Tibetan plateau in the north at about 3000m with yaks roaming freely in a very barren and mountainous area. In the south there are lush green rice fields with intensive subsistence farming to produce all sorts of vegetables and fruit including strawberries. Further south still, there is the rainforest.
has 1700 students and 117 staff. The students are divided into year groups known as Junior 1, 2 and 3 and Senior 1, 2 and 3.There are about 50-70 students in a class. Each student has their own small desk and chair and they are arranged in rows. The uniform consists of a white tracksuit with blue stripes for the older students or orange stripes for the younger students.
School day
The school day starts at and finishes at . For the senior students there are lessons every night from . There are 8 classes a day each lasting about 1 hour and it is the teachers that move classrooms rather than the students. There are 3 breaks during the morning. One break lasts 15 minutes and is for group exercises outside. All the students line up in rows in their classes and perform stretches to music. They have another break for eye exercises to stimulate their concentration. Lunch is a 2 hour break and students can eat in the school canteen, go home for lunch or buy food from the shops and stalls outside school. During lunch most students either complete homework or have a nap at their desk. In the afternoon there are 2 ten minute breaks. The students have several hours of homework every day and work very hard as they have exams every week in at least one subject and have very important exams at the end of each of the 2 terms. It is very important to perform well in the exams as students in the top 60% of the year pay less for their school fees. This motivates the students to work hard. At the end of Junior 3 and Senior 3 the students have extremely important exams to enable them to get into the next stage of education, as they may choose to change schools.
Year Schedule
There are 2 terms – September to the end of January, and March to the end of June. In February students have 3 weeks off school to celebrate the Chinese New Year. They also have a week off in May. And they have 8 weeks off in the summer.
Lessons
Students study Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Computing, Maths, English, Chinese, Art, Sport, Music and Social subjects. Lessons vary greatly in terms of teaching style, but are generally based around a key text book which ensures that all the necessary material for the exams is covered.Some teachers have a good knowledge of ICT and use it well to deliver lessons. Students work alone, in pairs and in small groups at times. In some lessons due to the large classes, the teacher has to present the lesson. The students seem very engaged with their studies and eager to learn. They clearly respect their teachers and stand up to greet them as they enter and bow to them. The students work hard and complete all work to a high standard. The students participate well in lessons and always stand up to volunteer an answer. Whilst I was visiting the school, I observed an Art lesson where students were doing paper cutting, a Music lesson where students learnt a traditional folk song and an English lesson where students prepared short dialogues. They were all excellent.
English
The level of English was very good and the students were very keen to practice it whilst I was visiting. They seemed fairly confident and not afraid to speak to me. They prepared their questions in advance by writing them down.The students have 9 to 12 lessons a week of English, whereas they only have 2 or 3 lessons a week of other subjects. English is considered very important as it seen as vital to finding a job and being successful. The students are very keen to come to
Scotland
and visit other English speaking countries to practice their English.
Extra Curricular activities
Every year there are two competitions to celebrate Chinese culture: dancing in May and singing in December. All the students participate and each class prepares a song or dance.
The students play table tennis, football and basketball. There are school teams for swimming, basketball and shooting with national competitions every year. There are 3 basketball teams in the district and
Xinying
Middle School
competes against them in local competitions.
Location
Students travel to school from all over
Kunming
and many cycle, walk, are driven by parents in cars or on motorbikes or electric mopeds. The students do not necessarily live close to the school as students can attend any secondary school in
Kunming
that they choose, as they have to pay fees. It costs about 800-1000 Yuan a year, which is about £50-65, if students are in the top 60% of their year in terms of their exam results. However for all other students, the fees are 6-8000 Yuan a year, which is about £400-540. Most secondary schools in
China
are fee paying.
The school is situated in the north of
Kunming
and is very much a city school. It is a courtyard style building on 5 floors with ponds, plants and trees in the central area. There is also a large sandy pitch, a running track and a basketball court. It has a pleasant atmosphere and is very light and bright.
Kunming
Kunming
is a beautiful city. It has 4 million people and feels very busy with lots of rickshaws, bikes, cars, electric mopeds, motorbikes and people walking. It feels very modern and has some lovely interesting architecture, as well as some older buildings. There is a pedestrianised shopping area with cafes, restaurants, and market stalls. The city has a historical centre with pagodas and typical Chinese gates. There are beautiful bhuddist and Taoist temples and mosques. There is a range of hills surrounding
Kunming
where there is a temple complex, as well as an enormous lake called
Dianchi
Lake
. The city is called the ‘
Eternal
Spring
City
’ as the temperature is about 20°C all year round with a generally blue sky. The city also has lots of trees, green parks and beautifully colourful flowers lining the roads. People sit outside everywhere and play cards, mahjong, local instruments, croquet, sing and even give massages.
Kunming
is in
Yunnan
province in southwest
China
and is home to 26 of the 50 ethnic groups in
China
. In
Kunming
there is a nationalities village which celebrates these different groups with typical buildings, dances, costumes, music and food. There is also a fantastic stage production called Dynamic Yunnan which brings together the musical and dancing traditions in an impressive display. The local people are very proud of their heritage and ethnic background and want to share it.
The food of the area is delicious as it is not too spicy but is very flavourful and light. Cross bridge noodles is the traditional dish which consists of a bowl of hot broth in which you put a selection of raw ingredients such as chicken, noodles and vegetables. Other specialities include
Yunnan
pancakes made from rice flour, goats cheese that can either be lightly fried or dried and then deep fried to resemble crisps. Meat and vegetable dishes are not generally combined and in a restaurant you typically order 4 or 5 dishes for 2 people consisting of: rice, soup, a vegetable dish such as cabbage or aubergine, a chicken or beef dish and a fish dish. They also use local wild flowers and hundreds of varieties of mushrooms.
Yunnan
is a diverse province with the high altitude Tibetan plateau in the north at about 3000m with yaks roaming freely in a very barren and mountainous area. In the south there are lush green rice fields with intensive subsistence farming to produce all sorts of vegetables and fruit including strawberries. Further south still, there is the rainforest.
Went to school this morning and had meetings with the art, music and english teachers to discuss possible projects for the future. lots of great ideas to share our 2 cultures and everyone is very excited about this. Now I have more meetings!
Today has been great so far..Spent the morning visiting local sights - 2 fasntastic temples - Yuangtong (bhuddist) and Golden (Taoist). The former was very picturesque with the typical chinese style gates ornataely carved and painted in different colours, a beautiful ciruclar pagoda anbd surrounded by water with terrapins and fish - people throw them in for luck. There were monks in beautiful orange robes. And lots of people burning incense and praying. There were huge bhudda statues and orante wooden carvings in fairly gaudy colours.
It is about 1pm and I have just eaten lunch at the canteen along with the other teachers. It costs about 30p for a huge plate of food! I had rice, shredded potatoes (perhaps their version of chips?), stir fry veg and meat, steamed egg and tomato and egg soup.
I spend the morning watching lessons - English, art and music. They were all great. In the English lesson the students learnt about Shakespeare, watched a bit of Romeo and Juliet and then had to make up their own play asnd perform it. The whole lesson was conducted in English and the students seemed to have a very good level of English and spoke well. They were all very keen to speak to me and came up and asked lots of questions in English such as 'what is your favourite movie' and I even practiced a bit of my chinese and spoke about my family. Of course they corrected my pronounication but they understood me. In the music lesson, the students learnt a typical folk song and had to dance. In art, the students practiced paper cutting and made paper cuttings. They all gave them to me as gifts so I now have lots to put on the wall at school. In all the classes, the students were very attentive and paid attention well. But there was a nice atmosphere and it wasn't as formal perhaps as I expected. There are so many students in each class so the style of teaching has to take this into consideration with the teacher talking a lot from the front. The students are lovely though and very friendly.
Plus got to watch the students take part in the daily exercises. Everyone went outsiode during morning break to do exercises together to music. They stood in their lines and followed the movements - a bit like aerobics but static. It was incredible.
Now I have some meetings with the students and the deputy about the link..
I was picked up from my hotel at 9.30am and driven to the school, which was about a 10 minute drive. I then had to give a formal speech at the welcoming ceremony. It was held in the playground with all the students (1700!) standing in lines on the dusty pitch, just like we do for fire drills. There was a raised platform for me and the deputy principal and my translator. I wore a tartan sash from the Highland Kiltmakers shop to show I was representing Scotland. The speeches were all translated, and presents were handed over - a shield from the Highland Council, a quaich from Imrays which was engraved with the school names, a scottish flag and the school scrapbook. Afterwards I had a meeting with the deputy principal who I have been emailing to set up this link. His name is Michael and he speaks very good English. The headmistress is away at the moment in Shanghai on a training course for 3 months so he is standing in as the head and is very busy. He is very nice, friendly and easy to talk to. We had a brief meeting and I talked about our school and showed him where it was on the map...There was a big banner welcoming me in Chinese and English and a huge wall size colour information poster about our school with photos. It looked great.
Then it was time for a quick tour of the school. It is based around a courtyard which has ponds, trees and plants. Around the 4 sides are the classrooms and they are on 4 floors. The students don't move between classrooms, but the teachers do. There are specialist classrooms for the library, 2 computer rooms and science labs - specific ones for each subject and all very high tech. There are about 50 students in a class and they all sit on individual small desks in rows. They have a uniform which is white - it looks like tracksuit bottoms and a top. They look very smart. There seems to be different colour stripes for different year groups..The school seems very friendly and has a nice atmosphere..
I spent the afternoon visiting the Yunnan Nationalities Village which has different houses on display for the different ethnic groups with people dressed in the typical dress. There are 50 or so groups in China and 26 of them are in Yunnan, so it is a big part of their culture and they are very proud of it. The houses varied from courtyard style with intricate patterns to bamboo houses on stilts. I saw them dancing and singing, and even got selected as the wife of a Muouso horseman!
Dinner was the typical dish of the area - Cross Bridge noodles. Basically a bowl of very hot broth served with raw meat and veg and noodles that you put in the bowl and it cooks. Lovely. But this was only one of the dishes! Also had pigs ear, seaweed, a variety of pickled mushrooms, wild veg that looked like grass, Peking duck with pancakes and a chinese style pork pie (slices of pork piled into a pryamid that you put into a white 'pie' made from rice) - very odd. Also saw traditional folk dancing...A long day.
Kunming seems like a lovely city - very green with lots of flowers blooming and trees and hedges lining the road. It is enormous and stretches as far as the eye can see. It seems quite modern with lots of new buildings and skyscrapers. But lots of green parks and areas to rest. Wide roads, with lots of cars but also bikes and mopeds and people walking. Very busy...However it seems fairly relaxed and not too hectic...And definately not as much traffic as in Beijing. Great weather - blue sky and sun and a hot 25 degrees!
That's hi in chinese! I have landed at Beijing airport and am emailing from a free email stand. Not bad....Just had a 9 hour flight to get here from Amsterdam plus another another to Amsterdam from Edinburgh. So left home at 9am Sat....My body clock is completely messed up. I am sure I should be tired and sleeping but am wide awake. Unfortunately I didn't sleep on the plane either, so will be exhausted by the time tonight comes. But first there is another plane to get. A 4hr flight to Kunming - the final destination. Thankfully I am being met by a teacher from the school and my interpreter...Although I did spend the journey on the plane revising my mandarin and trying to remember how to greet people and say basic things like yes and no....I think there is a formal dinner tonight and a tour of the city...Bright and sunny here but lots of haze and you could see all the pollution as the plane came into Beijing. On the flight also got to see lots of snowy mountains in southern Siberia. Pretty cool. Anyways...gotta catch a flight.
Grantown Grammar School has been linked up with a school in China, called Xinying Middle School. I will be visiting the school next week and keeping you up to date with my visit on this blog.
Here is some information about our partner school.
Location
The school is in the southwest of China in the city of Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province which is about the size of Japan! It enjoys a tropic highland humid monsoon climate, characterized by cool summers and warm winters. It is nick-named the City of Eternal Spring as it feels like spring all year round. The annual average temperature is 13-20°C and the annual rainfall is 1100 mm. Kunming is an important city in China as it used to be the gateway to the celebrated Silk Road that facilitated trade with Tibet, Sichuan, Myanmar and India. Yunnan Province is very diverse with mountainous terrain in the north and rainforest in the south. It is rich in flora and fauna, and is home to half of all of China's plant and animal species. There are many temples, pagodas, national parks and over 26 different ethnic minorities such as Yi, Bai, Miao, Dai and Hani.
The School
Xinying Middle school has 1700 students aged between 11-18 years, with 117 staff and 34 classes. The school is very modern and was only built in 1996. Some students travel a great distance to the school and can board. The students study a variety of subjects, such as Chinese, English, Maths, History, Geography, Politics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Music, Arts, Sports and Research Study. Every year there is a big sports and choir competition. The school website is: http://www.plxyschool.com/
Partnership with Grantown Grammar School
We hope to set up joint curriculum projects with the Chinese school in different subject areas. This will enable the students to learn about life in another country and see things from a different perspective. In the summer term we hope to carry out projects which focus on what it means to be Scottish and living in the Highlands. Students may compose pieces of traditional music, write poems about identity, draw pictures of their area, learn about local customs related to food and consider the implications of living in a national park. It is hoped that the Chinese school will carry out similar projects and the students will exchange their work, and thereby learn about life in each respective country. In the future, there will be many more such projects, mandarin lessons and hopefully exchange
Time seems to be flying. Can't believe that Beijing was so long ago...A quick update....
The students and us teachers did assembly presentations to everyone at school wearing our kung fu outfits and talking our way through lots of photos. We seemed to captivate the audience with our photos of the pandas, interesting food from the markets and the Beijing sights.
Ruth, one of the students, has applied to do chinese at Edinbugh university after being so inspired by the trip to China. Good luck to her and hope she gets in. She has also found a recipie for our favourite gumbo chicken on the web!
At school we are hoping to set up a mandarin language and culture club after the october break for S1/2 students.
And we are in the middle of trying to find a partner school in Kunming (a town in the southwest of China) and I may have to head back out to China in the next year to sort it out!
That's it for now....updates over the year will follow.
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