Shanghai maths book to be exported to UK

Chen Zhuhui, Shanghai maths teacher is giving maths lesson at St Vincent's Catholic Primary School.[Photo by Wang Mingjie]

A famous supplementary textbook on maths from Shanghai will soon be published in the UK this year, as part of the country's efforts to learn from the city's world-class mathematics teaching methods.

The English version of the book "One Lesson, One Exercise (yi ke yi lian)" will be designed on the base of the original Chinese version and integrate with the local curriculum as well.

The Chinese version of the book has been an essential part to the teaching and learning process for many Shanghai teachers and students for some 2 decades.

In 2012, UK 15-year-olds ranked 26th in maths among global rivals on the Program for International Student Assessment, issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD)since 2000 to evaluate the skills of young students across the globe.

Shanghai's students, on the other hand, ranked top overall in maths, reading and science on the 2012 exam.

The OECD says children of working-class families in Shanghai are on average better at maths than middle class children in the UK.

UK's education authorities have started to learn from Shanghai's maths teaching since last year.

Sixty of China's top math teachers from Shanghai were invited to selected British schools to share their skills in a bid to lift standards in Britain in September 2014, while some British teachers flew to Shanghai to study teaching methods in China.

Later this February, another 29 maths teachers in Shanghai will visit selected primary schools in the UK to share their teaching techniques.

Related: Shanghai-style maths lessons promoted in UK

Chen Zhuhui, also known as "Mr Bean" by all his students, starts his Shanghai-style maths lesson, with a mental arithmetic activity. He invites one student from each group to compete against the others to answers questions at the fastest speed.

This fast-paced activity lights up the whole class immediately, and Chen appears to blend in very well with the students throughout the one-hour session. The way Chen interacts with his students gives the impression that he has been teaching at the school for a long time.

Chen joined St Vincent's Catholic Primary School in central London three weeks ago.

According to Chen, familiarity with his students didn't come easy. He said that the first week was the most difficult since he was new to the school.