Mandarin

Intent – why do we teach what we teach in Mandarin? 

At Harris Academy Chobham we value the importance of learning another language and endeavour to support our students in becoming global citizens. Mandarin lessons equip our students with the knowledge and understanding to communicate in Mandarin alongside exposing them to Chinese culture. The Mandarin curriculum is carefully designed with the aim to develop our students into confident linguists with a proficient understanding of how to read, write, and speak Mandarin. Each key stage is designed to revisit and build upon what is taught at the previous stage, ensuring that all learning is embedded into long term memory, enabling our students to expand their vocabulary and make excellent progress.  

We are ambitious for Mandarin to be at the heart of our curriculum at Harris Academy Chobham. It is our intention that through the study of Mandarin, our students should develop the following knowledge, skills and dispositions:  

• A solid foundation of mandarin by focusing on the relationship between phonics, radicals, and characters. 
• High level of resilience and confidence in speaking, reading, and writing mandarin 
• A strong understanding of the essential components of characters and attain the knowledge required to explore and recognise new characters. 

Implementation – How do we teach Mandarin? 

Key Stage 2 students are taught Mandarin weekly for an hour. Students are introduced to Chinese culture and learn how to introduce themselves, talk about their family and express their preferences. Students are introduced to the concept of characters and the importance of tonality when speaking mandarin. Students begin reading and speaking mandarin using pinyin.  

Key Stage Three lessons build upon topics and concepts introduced at KS2.  In year 7, students cover key themes relating to their personal lives, in Year 8 students expand their studies and acquisition of language to enable them to talk about their local and wider community, with broader topics such as holidays and tourism introduced in year 9. By the end of Key Stage Three, students will have been exposed to a vast range of both simple and complex grammatical structures and vocabulary that should equip them with the knowledge and confidence to independently converse, respond and engage in oral discussions and written texts of varying length about topics related to their interests.   

GCSE Mandarin lessons are designed based on the AQA GCSE themes of identity and culture, local, national, international and global areas of interest and current and future study and employment. At this Key Stage students will revisit the vocabulary and grammatical knowledge acquired at Key Stage Three and apply this to new content, improving student’s ability to express themselves confidently in mandarin across a range of different contexts.  

For students who wish to study Mandarin at sixth form, we offer Edexcel A-level Chinese. Students cover the four different topic areas: Changes of Chinese societies, Chinese culture, transformations of Chinese speaking communities and countries and the impact of Reform Policy in China since 1978.  This is a motivating course of study that will enable the students to develop an advanced level knowledge and understanding of the Chinese language, the culture of China and other Chinese-speaking countries, as well as practical and valuable language and transferable study skills, providing a steppingstone for students who want to study the language at university, or who may wish to study abroad. 

Impact – What are the outcomes from Mandarin?

In the Early years, all pupils from Y3-6 are observed confidently greeting in Mandarin and having simple conversations on a variety of topics, eg. Self-introduction, family members and hobbies etc. The students will also be able to talk about cultural aspects in Mandarin speaking countries and communities. At the end of each half term, KS2 students will sit an end of unit low-stakes quiz which covers all of the key substantive knowledge that students need to know. The data is then used by our specialist Mandarin teacher to help differentiate worksheets and tasks so that students can continue to make good progress.  

In KS3 Mandarin students are able to confidently explain a few Mandarin specific terminologies and articulate the traditions and customs of festivals which are celebrated in Mandarin speaking countries and communities. The students are also able to show their comprehensive skills in spoken and written Mandarin texts. As well as having conversation and communicate in written text on different topics and for different purposes.  This is evident through students exercise books, the checking understanding that takes place in lessons as well as the regular assessed tasks, culminating in twice yearly assessments which are sat during assessment weeks. 

This leads to highly successful exam outcomes at the end of KS4. At GCSE in 2023 the subject was being studied by a third of the students in the year group. Over 90% of the students secured a Grade 5 or above; with over half of the students securing a Grade 7 or above. This allowed students to access their chosen Post-16 courses. Mandarin is also taught at Pre-U/A Level with 6^th formers.  At A Level there is a 100% pass rate with over 75% of students securing a grade B or above in 2023.  

There are also some students who go on to study Chinese at higher education institutions, some highlights are below: 

2023 – Elizabeth Olusi: Politics and international studies with Chinese University of Warwick 

2023 – Miren Olusi: International relations with Chinese University of Liverpool  

Exam Board Information

GCSE Syllabus Studied – AQA Mandarin

A Level Syllabus Studied – Edexcel Mandarin