Each morning as everyone arrived at school there would be a group of children on the doors to say ‘hi’ and ‘good morning’.   It was a really nice way to start the day and showed that everyone cared about each other.   In classes the children all listened carefully and when the teacher chose someone to speak they would stand up and give their thoughts very clearly.   The other children would then applaud and whoever spoke would acknowledge their encouragement with a little bow.   The person who spoke would then choose the next person to respond which was a really good way of giving a lot of ownership of the learning to the children.   All around the school there were inscriptions and quotes about teaching and learning from Confucius.   The children clearly understood his messages and we could tell the school was a respectful and caring one.

Today we talked in assembly about some of the things we learned while at No.2 Experimental School.   One of the first things that struck us was the huge number of children at the school.   3,600!   That is more than any of our high schools, probably two really big high schools added together.   The children start school when they are six and leave for middle school when they are twelve.   They go to middle school for three years and then go on to high school until they are eighteen.   Lots of children arrive at school quite early, about 7.30.   They play on the school yard as they don’t have a lot of room at home.   They play table tennis, basketball and run around the athletics track.  After they had been called in to register at about 8.30, we watched the children undertake their daily morning exercise which is a series of kung fu moves.   They are based on different animals and we could tell the youngest ones had been learning how to do the tiger!  We were very impressed by how so many children followed instructions and listened so carefully.   They also stand in silence for one minute, just to have some quiet time to think and prepare themselves mentally for the day ahead.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 m2 (7,800,000 sq ft).The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987,and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum’s former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War.