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British maths teachers enter Shanghai classrooms to study learning techniques

Exchange visit is latest step in initiative to drive up English school standards by following Chinese city’s example

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Seventy maths teachers from schools in England will undergo an “immersion-style exchange” in Shanghai over the next two weeks. Photo: Handout

Some 70 British maths teachers have arrived in Shanghai to study the teaching techniques used in the city’s classrooms.

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Their visit is part of an ongoing initiative by the British government to improve standards in schools in England by studying successful techniques used around the world.

The visiting teachers are going to spend the next two weeks visiting local primary schools in Shanghai, where students stunned educators around the world in 2010 after they outscored their counterparts in dozens of other countries – including the US, UK and Singapore – in maths as well as in reading and science in an international student assessment exam.

The teachers were set to begin “immersion-style teaching exchanges” in 43 primary schools in Shanghai on Tuesday, news portal Thepaper.cn reported on Monday.

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These teachers are visiting under a new round of teacher exchange programmes agreed between the Shanghai Education Commission and the British Department for Education late last year.

In exchange, Shanghai will send 34 maths teachers to visit schools in England in November and another 36 in January next year, the commission said.

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