Approach
Our approach to this project has been non-prescriptive balanced against accountability and ongoing monitoring of progress. We have assumed that all the schools involved have been best placed to develop their own models according to their individual circumstances, allowing for experimentation within as flexible a remit as possible.
Our hope has been for these schools to succeed in embedding Mandarin Chinese in their curriculums and to become, by the end of the Programme’s core funding in 2026, self-sufficient and able to continue to offer the subject to their students without the need for additional support. We have focussed on the following concepts:
Quality
teaching
Common among these centres is that each has built a concentration of teachers and pupils across a number of participating state schools, with a particular focus on those in more deprived areas, and with each school understanding the paramount importance of quality teaching.
Sustainable structures
These centres are designed to become self-sustaining ecosystems. We have encouraged and enabled collaboration within and across centres to foster the sharing of ideas, resources and best practices. This is facilitated by an infrastructure of established initiatives and a supporting digital platform, Bamboo.
Raising aspirations
Our view is that exposure to an important foreign language and culture that is little known about in the UK broadens horizons, increases confidence and opens new opportunities, thereby raising students’ aspirations, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
As we look to the future, our mission will be academically underpinned by the establishment of a new Centre of Excellence for the Learning and Teaching of Chinese at Oxford University. This will provide initial and ongoing specialist training for teachers of Mandarin across the country; undertake related research; and work in collaboration with schools.
The Foundation’s underlining goal to widen the horizons of all students, regardless of background, remains and, whilst the central funding programme draws to a close in 2026, the funding of school trips to China will continue until 2029.
John Anderson – Rector, Jordanhill School
“The factors that have significantly helped this project are notable as they are absent in most other educational projects: significant autonomy was given to headteachers allowing us to experiment with different models of delivery, accountability was factored into the annual return with a clear focus on sensible metrics, feedback and support from the Swire Chinese Language Foundation team was excellent and the annual conference was invigorating for centre leads and an excellent source of professional learning for teachers.”