Chongqing and the Chinese Education system: a workshop comparing the teaching of Mathematics in Wales and China

On 10th July, 11 teachers from South Wales attended a workshop comparing the teaching of Mathematics in Wales and China. The workshop, hosted by Cardiff Confucius Institute at the Copthorne Hotel, allowed teachers the opportunity to share their experiences from a visit to Chongqing in China where they had investigated best practice in the teaching of Mathematics.

Andrea Waddington (Sully Primary), Bethan Price (Llanharan Primary) and Vicky Price (Gilwern Primary) spoke to participants about the Mathematics lessons they had observed whilst on the British Council funded trip.

The week-long visit in March saw 11 Mathematics coordinators, teachers, Head Teachers and Welsh Government representatives engage in visits to different schools in the Liangjiang New District region to look at the ways in which Mathematics is successfully taught in China, whilst at the same time, sharing Welsh practices.

Andrea, Bethan and Vicky highlighted the approach to the promotion of mental agility in the Chinese classroom, as well as the teacher-led lessons, explaining that teachers would explore real-life mathematical problems with pupils, using their expertise to develop higher order questioning as the lesson progressed. They explained that lessons were highly structured by subject-specialists and strictly limited to 40-minutes even in primary schools, in order to ensure that pupils could remain attentive throughout each lesson.

Since returning to Wales, Andrea, Bethan and Vicky have all taken steps to implement some of what they learnt and observed in China in their own classrooms. Andrea now uses simple numeracy-based games to encourage her pupils' mental agility in a fun environment, while Bethan has started to implement a 'Maths mastery' approach to Mathematics teaching in Llanharan Primary School. They hope that by sharing their experiences in this kind of forum, other teachers could start to adopt new ways of thinking or new approaches to teaching in their own classrooms.

The workshop was attended by delegates from a wide ranges of schools across South Wales, including the John Frost School Newport, Lansdowne Primary, the EAS consortium, Gilfach Fargoed Primary, Derwendeg Primary, Canolfan Yr Afon and the British Council.