On 30th June 2017 many of the students studying at CITCM’s partner schools participated in the internationally recognized Youth Chinese Test (YCT). The total number of students participating in the exam surpassed 1000; which is a new record for CITCM.
The youngest exam taker, who was only 7 years old, was from Goodrich Community Primary School. This school is one of CITCM’s Confucius Classrooms and Mandarin has already been embedded in their curriculum for many years. A Year 6 student at Goodrich, who achieved the highest score in last year’s YCT exam, helped the Chinese teacher to explain the test procedures and showed the younger students how to complete the answer sheet. She explained to the Chinese teacher that ‘it’s not too hard to study Mandarin’ and that she ‘really enjoys it’.
This test date marked the first time for Portway Primary School students to participate in the YCT test. Currently there are more than 700 students studying Mandarin at Portway Primary School, and on this occasion all of the year 5 students participated in the exam. Ms. Jacqueline Waine, head teacher at Portway, explained that they ‘are actively encouraging students to develop their Mandarin, and hope that in the future their students will be able to progress to the next level of YCT’.
CITCM pays great attention to its partnerships with Primary and Secondary schools in London. As the number of schools incorporating Mandarin into their curriculum continues to increase, CITCM anticipates that the number of exam takers will also continue to rise.