Pupils to try Chinese-style teaching

Fifty 13-year-olds will spend half a term being taught 'Chinese-style' in English, maths and science

Fifty 13-year-olds will spend half a term being taught 'Chinese-style' in English, maths and science (Getty)

A group of British teenagers will be taught by Chinese teachers in a unique experiment for a BBC documentary to test whether Shanghai’s education system is as good as it is cracked up to be.

Fifty 13-year-olds will spend half a term being taught “Chinese-style” in English, maths and science for the three-part BBC2 series to be shown later this year.

Announcing Chinese School, the BBC said: “Their progress will be measured against a similar group of children who have continued to be taught as normal.”

China has been ranked as the top performing nation in the PISA international education league tables measuring the performance in the three core subjects.

An exchange programme previously set up by the former Education Secretary Michael Gove found that pupils in Shanghai were three years ahead of their British counterparts in maths. However, some schools that take international students say Chinese pupils start off less questioning than British.