Today’s Education in the Media blog looks at the teacher exchange between England and Shanghai.
Shanghai Maths Exchange
Today, Friday 25 January, an evaluation report has been published on our Shanghai maths exchange programme, which allowed teachers from England to share experiences with their counterparts from Shanghai. This has received coverage from TES and Schools Week.
The research, carried out by Sheffield Hallam University has found that teachers valued the exchange and gained knowledge as well as confidence. The study also looked at the effect an early version of the programme had on attainment and showed positive effects at Key Stage 1 for those schools that adopted the programme in full.
The exchange was launched in 2014 and saw over 700 teachers participating since.
School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said:
Standards are rising in our schools, with 84% of pupils now attending good or outstanding schools compared to 66% in 2010. We have looked towards the best education systems in the world to help drive this improvement and our work with China has been a key part of this.
As this report shows, the Shanghai – England Maths Teacher Exchange has been a positive influence on our schools, with the lessons learned from it having demonstrable effects in classrooms. There has, for example, been a marked increase in the number of primary schools using whole class teaching rather than seeing pupils split by attainment.
As we go forward, we will continue to work with our peers in Shanghai to share the practices that our high performing education systems are based upon.
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