Longyuan Middle School, Shanghai is a public secondary school subordinate to the Education Bureau of Xuhui District, Shanghai. Founded in September, 1996, the school now occupies an area of 11300 square metres and has a construction area of 8400 square metres. The school is located in the historic Longhua area which has enjoyed a thousand years of history and cultural heritage.
The school campus consists of a five-storey classroom building, a large playground with a 200-metre racetrack, two volleyball courts, six basketball courts and an indoor stadium with six badminton courts. Besides, it also has a meeting room with a seating capacity of 300 people, a lecture hall, two computer rooms and eleven classrooms for special purposes. All the classrooms are equipped with up-to-date educational facilities. Now the school has a faculty of fifty-five teaching and support staff. The student population is over four hundred, aged thirteen to sixteen. There are four classes in each grade and sixteen classes in all. To sum up, our school is a beautiful and comfortable place to be, for teaching and learning.
The mission of Longyuan Middle School is to develop our school into one that is in pursuit of innovation and progress, a public educational institution with its own characteristics, marked by its quality educational practice made possible by its dedicated and specialised faculty. We aim at developing our school to such an extent that it is loved by all our children, favoured by the parents, recognised by the community and has its voice heard in the whole district.
We have been going all out to improve the quality of teaching to win not only the trust of students and their parents but also the acknowledgement of the society. Great progress has been made in more than a decade of its educational endeavour ever since its establishment. The school has gradually developed its unique features in the education of science, sports and Chinese traditional culture. A series and variety of educational activities have been designed and organised to enrich students' practical experience, to give students’ opportunity to learn by independent thinking and doing as well as to promote their spirit of innovation and the courage to face challenges.
In recent years, the school has also invested special efforts in attaining excellence in teaching and teachers’ professional development. All our efforts pay and our school has been successively awarded more than ten honourable titles, namely, “Shanghai Municipal Green School”, “Shanghai Municipal Garden School”, “The School Featuring Extracurricular Education in Space Aeronautic Science and Technology”, “The School Featuring Olympic Mind Activities”, “Xuhui District Advanced Unit for Community Education”, “Xuhui District Civilized Unit” and “Shanghai Municipal Safety & Civilized Unit” and so on.
About our students:
At present, our school hosts nearly three quarters of students whose parents are non-native Shanghai residents, who are largely from other provinces and are looking for better job opportunities in Shanghai. Our school enrols all children nearby. Most of the students in our school are simple, natural and fond of sports. However, due to their poor family background and lack of educational support at home, many of our students face more difficulties in learning especially in English learning. For these reasons, our teachers are encouraged to give more care and love to each student and communicate with their parents regularly. Meanwhile, the teachers are encouraged to try their best to cultivate students' learning potential by setting practical teaching and learning objectives and working out effective teaching strategies in their daily teaching practice. Furthermore, we have also tried varied instructional strategies to cater for students’ different learning needs at different learning levels, in addition to individual tutoring.
About our teachers:
Most of the teachers in our school are, on the one hand, young, hardworking and energetic, but, on the other, they still lack experience in teaching and are in need of professional support and advice for effective teaching strategies, methods and techniques. Besides, the students' low competence and achievement in learning add to their difficulty in teaching and helping the students. Thus they can hardly enjoy a sense of achievement.
Therefore, we sincerely value this opportunity of a sister school partnership which can be a very helpful way to broaden our teachers’ educational mind and horizons. We look forward to more professional development possibilities for our teachers enriched by forthcoming discussions and sharing of ideas and practice between Chinese and British teachers. Meanwhile, we are also convinced that such a partnership can, at the same time, provide our students with more international experience and help building up their awareness of international culture and understanding.
