Beijing part 1- Vocational HS visit

After our visit to the Great Wall we went to a vocational high school. In China, there are 9 years of compulsory education (grades 1-9) and then students have the choice of vocational or normal high school, which they pay for themselves.  The vocational high school, Beijing Foreign Affairs Vocational High School, specializes in hospitality, culinary arts, business English and tourism.  After a welcome message and discussion with the Principal, we toured the school and saw all of the different themed classrooms.

The goal of the school is to prepare students for a career or university in one of the specialties, and they have had over 30,000 graduates.  The classrooms all were designed with a specialty in mind, and it looked more like a hotel than a school.  We visited a tea room, a chocolate making room, room to practice western style restaurant serving and another for Chinese cuisine.  They had separate kitchens for western and Asian cuisine, as well as a separate room to practice chopping food.  They even had a room to practice bartending (yes, high school students were making us sample bar drinks!) and it was incredible to see the detail into planning each "classroom."  The school also offers exchange programs for international students and summer programs, where students can learn not only the mandatory subjects (mathematics, English and Chinese) but also special classes like tea art, flower art, chocolate making, etc.

The desciptions of the rooms doesn't do the school any justice, I will post pictures once I can upload photos to my computer!

The students, teachers and administrators all were so welcoming and proud of their school, and are looking forward to connecting with some of us for future partnerships and exchange.