Five Chinese teachers and the students at the Bohunt School of Liphook in Hampshire. 

London Aug. 20 (People's Daily Online) —Documentary "Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School" presented by BBC in recent weeks, shows how 5 Chinese teachers teach 50 year 9 pupils at Bohunt School in Liphook with Chinese teaching methods. These pupils did exactly what Chinese pupils do for a month, featuring morning exercises, longer study time and no questions on class when teacher is talking. After 4 weeks, the pupils achieved achieved an approximately 10 per cent higher average mark across math and science, comparing to the rest of their year group.

The documentary has attracted a lot of debate in China and UK.

In an interview with People’s Daily online, Christopher King, HMC Chairman (2015/16) and Headmaster of Leicester Grammar School holds the view that it is not the true status of British school. "It was a television event edited to have an effect. How can 5 teachers have a meaningful long term effect on a school? It was interesting, it caused debate, which is good, but it tells us very little."

Mr. King have watched the programme. He thinks the conflicts shown in programme mainly attribute to a lack of support from the school's senior management. He doesn't think it is the case in most schools and certainly not in an HMC school which had agreed to a similar experiment.

HMC (the Headmasters' & Headmistresses' Conference) is a professional association of heads of the world's leading independent schools. HMC has 270 members in the British Isles, 61 international members and 8 associates.

Talking about British education and Chinese education, King says: "Both have strengths and both have weaknesses. UK education has smaller classes, more exchange of ideas and more debate. Chinese education has more of a teacher led focus and a greater focus on achieving the approved correct answer."

"Understanding the cultural setting" is the key point for both China and UK, he states: "If the school were an international school, such as mine, who seeks to establish a presence in Beijing, it will be important to connect to the Chinese way of life and not just offer a UK system. It will not be appreciated if it rejects traditional, important Chinese values."