CHILDREN at St Gregory the Great may think they have it tough – until they spent the day yesterday doing the equivalent of a school day in China.

As part of a link between St Gregory the Great School, East Oxford, and Changsha Foreign Language School in Hunan Province, 30 Year 7 pupils set their alarm clocks extra early yesterday to take on an epic 10 hour school day.

Instead of arriving for lessons at 8.45am, children were expected to arrive sharply at 7.30am.

Normal lessons were broken up with sessions in Chinese pictographs, Chinese cooking along with 10 minutes of ‘eye protection exercises’, performed twice daily by all Chinese schoolchildren to prevent short-sightedness.

Deputy headteacher Rodger Caseby said: “The idea was to introduce our children to Chinese language and culture by thinking about the experience of a child their own age in China, looking at what their school day is like and comparing it to ours.

“We hope they will perhaps develop an interest in doing a GCSE in Chinese, something we currently only enter Chinese students for.”

It had been planned for pupils to line up outside to carry out the daily physical exercises required in Chinese schools, but due to the unpredictability of the British weather, an indoor programme was devised.

And it was decided to let children off the four hours’ homework given to children in the other school – at St Gregory’s, a Year 7 pupil would typically have two 45 minute assignments to complete.

Currently two teachers from the Changsha school are at St Gregory’s, working with pupils and staff to find out more about the English education system, and another two will come to the school next term.

Mr Caseby said: “It’s a point of interest from their perspective of how our school days are so short and how we achieve what we do in that short day.”

Carylle Villajin, 11, from Greater Leys, found the experience fun.

She said: “I think their school day is good – I would quite like to do it every day.”

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk