By Katharine Carruthers, Honorary Professor, UCL Institute of Education
‘Our children are the citizens of our common future.’ (Department for Education, 2026).
‘Children and young people should be central in developing a shared understanding of what they need at any point in time “nothing about us without us”’(SSAT, 2023).
In England, schools are engaging with the Department for Education’s Consultation on Progress 8 and Attainment 8, as well as dealing with significant financial constraints. What do our children need? This blog post makes a case for Mandarin Chinese (Mandarin), giving a run through of the support available and catching up with a teacher from a language college, who taught Mandarin there for 23 years. But first let’s hear from a student in Year 12:
‘One of the big things about a language is when you learn it, you often start to look at the world. And Chinese did invite you to consider things from a different perspective.’
How to begin? What support is available to schools thinking about Mandarin?
Support is plentiful. The development of this support started at SSAT in 2003 with an embryonic e-forum for teachers of Mandarin and the first Annual Chinese Conference. The SSAT Confucius Institute for Schools began in partnership with Peking University in 2007.
The Chinese Networks team at SSAT advised schools, wrote textbooks with teachers for KS3 and KS4 Chinese in collaboration with Pearson, worked with exam boards to ensure appropriate qualifications for GCSE and A-level and developed CPD for a growing network of teachers teaching Mandarin in the mainstream curriculum.
When the Chinese Networks team transferred to UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in 2012, PGCE Languages expanded with places for up to 20 PGCE students annually on the Mandarin specific course. The vast majority of these teachers went straight on to teach Mandarin in mainstream schools.
So, experienced teachers are out there, a thriving materials exchange and a support network. The e-forum which began life as six teachers is now over 1200. Mandarin has been successfully embedded in a significant number of schools.
Please contact us at chinesenetworks@ucl.ac.uk and we can provide advice and put you in touch with a school near you, who already offers Mandarin, for you to connect with.
A chat with leading Mandarin teacher and teacher trainer, Michelle Tate
I caught up with Michelle Tate, Head of Mandarin for 23 years at Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School (KLB), a comprehensive in Gloucestershire and now working with the Chinese Networks team at IOE. Michelle’s school became a Language College in 1996 and was one of the first five SSAT Confucius Classrooms in 2007. I wanted to know why her school started Chinese and what benefits studying Chinese have brought to students in her school beyond the obvious qualifications.
Michelle told me that the impetus for KLB to start Chinese in a rural setting was to give the school a USP. A strategic headteacher aimed to set up a Centre of Excellence in languages in a rural comprehensive school setting to encourage children whose parents work in Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester and as far away as Cardiff to attend.
Here’s what Michelle said about the wider benefits of Mandarin Chinese for students at KLB:
- It stimulates curiosity, widens horizons, gives them opportunities to see that there’s a whole world beyond their small rural town. It teaches appreciation of the similarities and differences between Chinese and British societies, assisted by teaching assistants from China.
- It gives them the chance to try Chinese activities, food, singing, which they would never otherwise have had.
- It teaches them resilience to persevere and encourages pride for achieving something special and different from their peers. It gives them kudos amongst their peer group, parents and in the community.
- It provides the opportunity to work/study in China and the Chinese diaspora and have access to degrees and jobs closed to those who don’t study Chinese.
- Multi-school China trips forge long-lasting friendships amongst students from different schools in the UK, as well as friendships in China
In conclusion, to bring us back to national perspective, as was noted in ‘UK Universities and China’ (Natzler, 2020): ‘Ultimately the capacity of any nation to develop productive relations in China will be determined by the depth and width of its knowledge of China’s written and spoken language.’
Do get in contact for further information. There is a thriving community of committed headteachers and Chinese teachers who are only too happy to help.
About the author: I began studying Mandarin at Durham University; there was then no opportunity to study the language at school. I have worked with SSAT and IOE for over 20 years leading work to build the framework for schools to be able to offer Mandarin on curriculum. Learning Mandarin has enriched the lives of so many school students over the years and I hope this number will continue to grow.
Katharine Carruthers, Honorary Professor, UCL Institute of Education
References
Department for Education. 2026. Every Child Achieving and Thriving.
Natzler, Michael (ed.). 2020. UK universities and China. HEPI Report 132.
SSAT. 2023. Children’s Charter – a pledge for children
