In 2010, Michael Gove, then education secretary, penned a loving ode to East Asian pedagogy. He described with excitement how he wanted education in England to emulate the schools he had seen in China and Singapore. “Like Chairman Mao, we’ve embarked on a Long March to reform our education system,” he wrote.

Gove confessed, apparently without irony, that, in education, “I’d like us to implement a cultural revolution just like the one they’ve had in China”.

England’s attraction to East Asian pedagogy has only deepened since then. In 2016, schools minister Nick Gibb announced plans to introduce the Asian maths “mastery” approach in 8,000 English primary schools. The following year, publisher HarperCollins signed a deal to translate Chinese maths textbooks for the UK market. And in January, a report revealed that the Department for Education had committed £76 million to its Teaching for Mastery programme, which included funding for maths-teacher exchanges between England and Shanghai (see box, page 47).

But so far, little evidence has emerged to confirm that this approach has either improved attainment or changed attitudes to maths in UK classrooms. Some academics have questioned whether the effort to import East Asian educational practices to the West is less a romance and more a fatal attraction. But in China, a new crop of bilingual schools catering to both Chinese nationals and overseas-born pupils are working to prove that Eastern and Western pedagogies can indeed be a match made in heaven.

David Mansfield, executive headmaster of the bilingual Y K Pao School in Shanghai, says the two approaches are often treated as polar opposites. “Eastern pedagogy is traditionally seen as being Confucian,” he explains. “It focused on didactic teaching for knowledge acquisition, lots of memorisation and replication. Western pedagogy is deemed more holistic and focused on the application of knowledge and skills, especially communication, critical thinking and creativity.”

Y K Pao, where about seven in 10 students are Chinese, has developed its own pedagogical approach that combines Western practices with Eastern rigour. Called SiMian BaFang, or “four sides and eight points”, it combines four central tenets of teaching (planning, instruction, assessment, review) and eight approaches used by both Chinese and international staff.

‘The fish and bear’s paw’

Mansfield says the pedagogical approach draws on diverse research on how children learn; in doing so, it brings together neuroscience and the work of two British educationalists - Daisy Christodoulou and Katharine Birbalsingh, the head of Michaela Community School in north-west London - on knowledge-based curriculums.

“We try to incorporate brain science and traditional good Western practice … alongside Chinese pedagogies that prize deliberate practice and listening closely to an expert, delivering informed direct instruction,” he says. “We want to see our students develop independence of mind, critical thinking, real, creative problem-solving, but believe that this springs from deeply embedded knowledge and understanding. Hence, adding Western applied learning approaches to Chinese methods works well and will, I believe, become normative in the longer term.”

Similarly, Wellington College’s international director, Scott Bryan, says the Huili Schools run by its partner organisation, Wellington College China, represent a “marriage of Eastern and Western practices and philosophies within the framework of the Chinese national curriculum”.

“They like to talk about providing ‘the best of both worlds’ or ‘the fish and bear’s paw’, by bringing together the best of both systems,” he says. “The Chinese teachers will be using some of the British approaches and our British teachers will be adopting some of the Chinese style.”

Bilingual schools have expanded rapidly in China in recent years, as demand for internationally minded education has grown among increasingly wealthy middle-class families. These schools teach Chinese-national and overseas-born pupils in both English and Mandarin. And having Chinese-national pupils means that, unlike traditional international schools, they are obliged to follow the Chinese curriculum between the ages of 6 and 16. However, they can bring their own individual twist on how they teach.

Education-sector intelligence service ISC Research knows of 637 such schools in the country and expects another 30 to open within the next two years. Increasingly, they are based in “second-tier” cities, such as Hangzhou and Wuxi, and are often backed by property developers who want to push up prices in their housing complexes.

“The logic is pretty simple [among developers]: I build this beautiful township, I put a good school in, I can sell the properties for a lot more. It will be more desirable for people to live in my compounds,” Vipul Bhargava, a special adviser on education to the UK’s Department for International Trade, told delegates at a recent conference.

British-style education is particularly popular, especially “brand-name” schools, such as Harrow and Wellington. Venture Education says 40 per cent of international schools in China teach A levels, compared with 26 per cent that use the US curriculum and 15 per cent that opt for the International Baccalaureate. The consultancy predicts that the number of British independent schools in what is Asia’s largest economy will have doubled between 2017 and the end of this year.

“These schools provide a more Western style of education, which offers greater access to the world’s best universities and, as a result, better job prospects,” says Richard Gaskell, schools director at ISC Research. “There is a desire by local Chinese parents, as well as the Chinese government, for their children to receive a bicultural education that respects their heritage, yet prepares them in the best possible way for a global future. This approach enables children to achieve qualifications that are recognised worldwide … while retaining their home language and culture.”

The growth in high-quality international schools has made China an increasingly attractive destination for teachers. Diane Jacoutot, managing director of international recruitment agency Edvectus, says staff can now expect packages comparable to the Middle East, which can reach 25,000 yuan (£2,820) per month plus a housing allowance and benefits, while also benefiting from China’s lower living costs.

Because Chinese families place such value on education, she adds, teachers are treated with respect and can really make a difference to children’s lives. “It’s not just crowd control, it’s real teaching,” she says.

Still, teachers in China can face other issues in the classroom. The state-approved curriculum places a strong emphasis on shaping a patriotic Chinese identity and loyalty to the ruling Communist Party. All primary and middle schools teach the government’s “core socialist values”, and new language, history, law and ethics textbooks reportedly include dozens of tales of revolutionary heroism by figures such as Mao Zedong. Controversial topics, including the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, are banned, while Tibet and Taiwan are described as inseparable parts of China.

Beijing is also reportedly ramping up inspections of teaching materials used in international schools, as part of president Xi Jinping’s push to increase government control of education.

Jacoutot admits having to censor what you teach may not be for everyone. “When teachers travel abroad, you often have to put aside what you think is right and wrong, and put it in a different context,” she says. “There are some teachers who aren’t so suited to going abroad as others, as it does require a high degree of flexibility and adaptability … If speaking up is really important, maybe don’t go to the Middle East or Far East.”

Tricky translation

For teachers who do decide to teach in a Chinese bilingual school, the challenge is working out how to do so. Primary headteacher Eileen Fisher, who will lead the new Craigclowan China prep school in Xian when it opens in September, says there is “lots of marriage” between the Scottish and Chinese early years curriculum. Both place a strong emphasis on pastoral lessons covering topics such as table manners and hygiene. Both also address different topics every two-to-three weeks, which act as a central theme for lessons, and emphasise the importance of numeracy and measurement.

They differ, however, in other key ways. Fisher says that, at her current school in Ipswich, Suffolk, where she has been head for more than a decade, subjects tend to be tied together, while the Chinese curriculum teaches them more in isolation.

In Ipswich, there is also greater emphasis on literacy at a young age. “We have a lot more focus on our storytelling and picture books,” Fisher explains. “We can spend a week doing work around, say, Panda’s Surprise … I don’t think that’s the case in terms of how they operate [in China].”

Western teaching also tends to take a more creative approach centred on active learning, which uses “imagination to solve problems”, Fisher says. Lessons are more flexible and can be adapted to suit pupils’ individual needs and interests, or incorporate their favourite toys. She also worries about having to cut back on outdoor learning because of the air quality in Xian, although the new school will have a roof terrace so the children can learn to grow vegetables.

Releasing the pressure

Other schools are throwing out the rule book altogether. The Whittle School will take a completely different approach when it opens its first two Mandarin-English bilingual schools in Washington D C and the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen this year.

Shenzhen campus head Rhiannon Wilkinson says the school is planning to strip the Chinese curriculum down to its bare bones and develop lessons modelled on the latest academic research, while also incorporating international content. More revolutionary still, the schools will eschew exams in favour of continuous assessment and one-on-one tuition.

Wilkinson, who currently leads Wycombe Abbey, a boarding school in Buckinghamshire, says many parents she has spoken with want to spare their children from going through the notoriously tough gaokao university entrance exams. “I think there is a desire by many younger parents to escape some of the pressurised aspects of the Chinese education system,” she says. “I get the impression that the younger families, the younger parents who are really genuinely interested in our approach, believe this is the way that education is going to develop.”

As yet, much is in flux. Wilkinson says the school is still recruiting both international and Chinese staff, many of whom have trained overseas and been through China’s equivalent of Teach First - the employment-based teacher training programme that targets areas of social disadvantage. The first semester of lessons has been planned, but beyond that, they will be dictated by the teachers. In kindergarten, the Reggio Emilia “learning through play” approach will be used, but in the older years, teachers will be expected to incorporate the best techniques from around the world.

The first wave of students are largely aged 11 or younger, giving the school time to decide how it will put together the portfolios that students will use instead of exam results when applying to university.

Still, Chris Whittle, the entrepreneur founder of the school, is already thinking big, and plans to open more than 30 campuses in the next decade. Each will have its own specialism: Washington is tipped to lead in international politics, while Shenzhen will major in Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects. Pupils will also be able to do exchanges to further their interests. As well as giving pupils a more international perspective, Wilkinson hopes this approach will help the Whittle Schools to recruit and retain the best teachers.

A former history teacher herself, she hopes that giving her Chinese students a broad range of perspectives on the world will help to create a more open-minded generation of future leaders.“It’s easy to judge [a country’s political systems] from thousands of miles away,” she says. “You square certain things [such as personal doubts] by feeling that you’re part of a momentum where perhaps, down the line, things will be different.”

Caroline Henshaw is a reporter at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 8 March 2019 issue under the headline “East or West: could both be best?”