News & Events
Visit to Shanghai No 3 Girls School, China - November 2007
I have just returned from a visit to our partner school in Shanghai, Number 3 High School. The school was celebrating its 115th anniversary, and invited colleagues from all its partner schools for an all expenses paid trip to take part in an international conference on education. One of the themes for discussion was teaching thinking, and as this is something we are already working on, and which we are keen to extend, I decided to accept the invitation.
Ms Lecky accompanied me, as our longest established work on teaching thinking is the CASE course which students take in Y7 and 8, during their Science lessons. The official name of the course is Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education, but the students know it as ‘Brain training’. Ms Lecky is a CASE trainer, and trains not only our own teachers in this very specific method of teaching, but also teachers from other schools. In Shanghai, she gave a demonstration lesson to a Year 8 class from Number 3 High School.
Number 3 High School is a selective school, and its very high reputation means that it attracts the brightest girls in Shanghai. It was nonetheless impressive to see these girls taking part in a very demanding discussion-based Science lesson conducted in English, which none of them had learned anywhere but at school. Apart from a brief introduction for the teachers who had come to observe, which was translated, Ms Lecky did not use an interpreter, and the students expressed their thoughts in English.
It was very interesting to meet colleagues from Brisbane, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, San Francisco, and Japan. We made useful contacts, and learned about what other schools are doing regarding teaching thinking. A number of colleagues also expressed a serious interest in the CASE project, including another visiting headteacher from Shanghai, who gave a response to what he had observed in the seminar after the lesson. We were also keen to find out about how other colleagues teach Mandarin, because, of course the schools all had this as one of the reasons for their link with No 3 High School.
The visit included some enjoyable activities in celebration of the anniversary, including a dinner, where we had the pleasure of meeting the American great grand-daughter of the very first headmistress of the school, when it was founded in 1892, as St Mary’s School. (The building still shows traces of that church school origin, which is quite fascinating in the present context.) The school campus is like an oasis in the middle of a huge building site – not only is Shanghai expanding rapidly, with sky scrapers going up all over the city, but they are building an underground train system, which includes a line going right past the school. On the Saturday, students from the school performed musical items and dances for a large audience of local dignitaries, past students and the school, gathered on the large, impeccably kept lawn in front of the main building. The weather was pleasantly warm, the sun shone, and the trees were full of birds. It was quite an amazing experience.
Altogether, we were tremendously well looked after, with Ms Ding, one of the teachers who has visited Grey Coat in the past, acting as our personal guide. Our next exchange visit to Shanghai is due to take place in June, and students from Number 3 High School will be visiting London in October 2008. We greatly look forward to the continuation of our developing relationship with this remarkable school.
Here are some images from the trip:
 
 
 
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