Grammar boys full of Eastern promise in Mandarin lessons

IT'S a sure sign there's a shift in the world order when schoolchildren in South Holland start learning Mandarin.

This is the case at Spalding Grammar School which has taken something of a lead in the English provinces in tackling this notoriously difficult language.

A teacher from Shanghai has been engaged to give all the year seven pupils a 12-week grounding in Mandarin. And the school has already twinned itself with her school in China.

Banks in UK have made it known they will be looking for staff with knowledge of a Chinese language.

And other commercial undertakings are encouraging these studies as well.

How are the pupils managing?

"Pretty well," according to the school's community links manager Jean Biggadike.

And she says even the staff have muscled in on the classes and are learning Mandarin too.

"The boys seem to have taken to it quite easily – we are delighted with the way they have responded to the challenge – and some of the staff have now started lessons at lunchtime and after school.

"The lessons started this term. The teacher is Zhang Qianhong and she came across from the school we are linked with at Wuxi in Jiangsu Province.

"She is a very good teacher and the boys are enjoying the lessons – and I do know the adults are enjoying them as well."

Pupil exchange visits across the English Channel are no trouble to arrange, but visits across the globe – they are on a different scale entirely. All the same these are being lined up.

The Chinese connection was first made after a local businessman, married to one of the teachers, put the school in touch with the school in China.

Deputy head Peter Wasley visited the school in Wuxi in 2006 followed by a group of teacher in May this year.

This month three teachers from China will be at the school – the first arrivals in a teacher exchange programme.

And pupils from the Chinese school will be here next year, with the Spalding boys paying a return visit in 2010.

It could prove quite an eye-opener for them. Lucy's school has 5,000 pupils on the roll.