Together with experienced teachers from across the country, the MEP team have created a series of Student Projects to help students engage with self-study. The projects have been designed to minimise teacher workload. As such, you can simply sign off completed projects, or make them a fundamental part of your lessons, perhaps once a fortnight.
There is no particular order that the projects need to be completed in, but you may wish to recommend a specific project for students to start with. After that you could let students choose which projects to do and in which order, depending on how you want to incorporate their non-taught hours into your lesson time. Giving students autonomy to pick and choose their own projects will give them a sense of ownership over their own learning.
Each project has been calculated to take roughly two weeks, but we understand that whilst some students will take one week, others may require more time.
KS3 Student Projects
Each of these projects have been given a Dragon Rating, a grading to show how challenging each project is, with 3 being the most challenging. Grading is represented by the dragon images that can be found on the projects and in the teacher notes. Projects have been broken down further into Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9. This breakdown is only advisory and reflects the language level needed to tackle the projects. More advanced Year 7 students may be able to complete Year 8 projects earlier, whilst students who are beginning their Chinese studies in later years may still find Year 7 projects stimulating work.
Projects for each year group can be accessed below:
To read more about the KS3 projects, please click here.
KS4 Student Projects
The projects designed for KS4 were published in 2021, with the aim of providing older students with a further challenge in Mandarin as they prepare for GCSE while also encouraging their engagement with current affairs and the idea of global citizenship. As such, these projects align with a selection of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The KS4 projects can be accessed here.
To learn more about the KS4 projects, please read here.
Teacher Notes
There are Teacher Notes to accompany each individual project. These notes provide information such as; the language covered in each project, estimated completion times and an explanation of what the project covers. Teacher Notes are a useful resource in helping determine whether the project is the correct level for your class.
Marking
Each project has an Answer Sheet or Answer Book, which is presented alongside other project documents. You can decide whether students have access to this so that they can mark and evaluate their own work, or if you would rather, keep the guidance notes to yourself.
We hope you and your students enjoy using the projects! If you have any questions, or perhaps an interesting case study of how you have used the projects, please email mandarinexcellence@ucl.ac.uk to let us know.
Please note, all of the MEP Student Projects have been created especially for students participating in the Mandarin Excellence Programme, but are publicly available for anyone to use.
