Earlier this year, we held the first Schools and Universities Day aimed at creating connections and a dialogue between schools and universities, and providing an opportunity for Mandarin secondary school students to meet directly with University representatives of Chinese undergraduate courses.

With a reach across the whole of England, through our network of Confucius Classrooms and membership of our eforum (600+ members), for this initial event we attracted over 130 teachers and students of Chinese, and representatives from 14 universities. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with all sides stating that they would welcome this as an annual event.

Teachers found the opportunity to speak with universities particularly helpful in terms of understanding the perspective on admissions and ab initio and how they can best prepare their students; students were overwhelming positive about the opportunity provided to speak with universities, as it helped them clarify what kind of course they would like to apply for, and gave them more areas to consider. Universities appreciated the opportunity to both speak directly with students, as well as understand the teacher’s perspective better, and to start to make regional links with schools teaching Mandarin in their area.

The second Schools and Universities Day will take place at the IOE this academic year on 15th January, 2016.  For more information and to book places for yourself and your students on this day, please click here

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at chinesenetworks@ioe.ac.uk