Reporter Wang Yunna.
Classroom at Jintang Primary School.
Students in class.
The teacher takes the students to read together. The above ** are all taken by Zhou Qiuyan (People's Vision).
The "Opinions on Building a High-quality and Balanced Basic Public Education Service System" issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the Communist Party of China put forward that the necessary small-scale rural schools should be run well.
In recent years, the "withdrawal and merger of schools" has optimized the layout of schools and concentrated the strength of running schools, but there are still some small-scale rural schools that play an important role in facilitating the enrollment of students in remote areas and reducing the financial burden of families.
Running the necessary small-scale rural schools well is of great significance for effectively improving the quality of rural education, promoting the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education, and building a strong country in education.
Editor At 6:50 a.m., the chirping of birds woke up Chen Jialin, who had just entered the first grade of primary school. He got up, dressed and washed, ate a bowl of steaming rice noodles, and went to school with his fourth-grade brother Chen Zijian.
The flat asphalt road winds along the mountainside, and the brothers walk happily, with friends joining in from time to time along the way. After a while, the group of primary school students arrived at Jintang Primary School at the entrance of the village, where teachers were greeting them at the school gate.
Jintang Primary School is a village primary school in Yunji Village, Lianhua Town, Xiangjiang New District, Hunan. The school has 6 grades, one class for each grade, a total of 48 students and 9 teachers, and belongs to the small rural school.
Running the necessary small-scale rural schools well is an important part of the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education. In recent years, Jintang Primary School has continued to explore and continuously improve the level of education and teaching by building a strong teaching team, giving full play to the advantages of small class teaching, revitalizing social resources, and optimizing school-running conditions, so as to achieve the transformation from "small and weak" to "excellent and beautiful".
Is the school "withdrawn" or "stayed"?
Consider the choices and listen to the voices of the villagers.
I was relieved to have my brother leading me and the children from the village as companions on the road. Chen Jialin and Chen Zijian's mother, Zhong Tianhua, said.
Ten years ago, after Zhong Tianhua became a child, he stopped going out to work and stayed at home to take care of the elderly and children.
If we don't have a village school, we have to send our children to the town to go to primary school. The road to the town is ** kilometers one way, and the daily round-trip transfer is time-consuming and laborious. Zhong Tianhua said that if you go to school in the town, the most feasible way is to rent a house to accompany you, but a year's rent plus food and clothing will increase the family's financial burdenIn addition, there are elderly people in the family who need to be taken care of, and if you take care of this one, you can't take care of that one.
The situation of Zhong Tianhua's family is not unique. Yunji Village is at the junction with Ningxiang City of Changsha City and Yuhu District of Xiangtan City, and is far away from the urban area of Changsha. There are more than 4,000 people in 1,427 households in the village, and some villagers with better economic conditions have bought houses and settled in the urban area, but there are still some villagers living here and still eager to receive high-quality education at their doorstep.
Jintang Primary School was founded in the 70s of the last century, and at its peak, there were three to four hundred students in the school. By 2015, there were about 100 students. Is there still a need for Jintang Primary School to continue?This issue has become the focus of attention of the local education department.
At that time, the number of students in the village was decreasing, and it appeared to varying degrees in various parts of Hunan. In 2016, the Hunan Provincial Department of Education issued the "Opinions on Further Standardizing the Adjustment of the Layout of Rural Compulsory Education Schools" to further standardize the adjustment of the layout of rural compulsory education schools, requiring all localities to carry out school layout planning, withdrawal and restoration in strict accordance with procedures. In May of that year, in order to further concentrate the strength of running schools, optimize educational resources, and improve the quality of education, a new round of adjustment was carried out in the layout of rural compulsory education schools. As a teaching management service organization in the jurisdiction, Lianhua Town Central School has carried out many in-depth investigations on rural schools in the town.
Whether the school is withdrawn or retained, the wishes and actual needs of the villagers should be fully respected. During a visit to Yunji Village, Li Shuangquan, the principal of Lianhua Town Central School, found that the call for the preservation of Jintang Primary School was very strong.
Schools can't be merged, we want children to go to school at home!Zhong Tianhua remembers that when she learned that Jintang Primary School might be removed, many villagers approached researchers and village cadres to reflect their feelings.
Li Shuangquan said that the survey found that the location of Yunji Village, where Jintang Primary School is located, is relatively remote, and if the school is removed, the cost of children's schooling will increase a lot. At the same time, if all the students in the village are studying in Lianhua Town, the campus area and teaching facilities of the town's primary school will be difficult to meet the demand, and the original teaching buildings and teaching equipment of Jintang Primary School will be idle and wasted.
The answer gradually became clear. After the investigation was completed and approved according to the relevant procedures, Lianhua Town's "withdrawal and merger" was officially launched. In addition to the 4 village primary schools that can be radiated by the Lianhua Town Central Primary School, the other 6 village primary schools are retained and continue to run schools, two of which are small-scale rural schools, and Jintang Primary School is one of them.
How to go from "weak" to "strong"?
Build a strong teaching team and give full play to the advantages of small classes.
This semester, Chen Zijian's fourth-grade class ushered in a new class teacher, Yi Ting. The previous head teacher, Ouyang Qiandan, ended two years of teaching and returned to the first primary school in Yuelu District, the original unit.
When I came to this class two years ago, Ms. Ouyang taught English and Chinese. In order to increase the amount of reading for the students in her class, she will read with the children in the classroom for at least 20 minutes every day after the lunch break. Since there are only 10 students in the class, the whole class will take turns to share their reading insights in Chinese class.
After a period of time, the students' Chinese foundation is stronger and their interest in learning has also increased. In the past, Chen Zijian would be so nervous to answer questions in class that he didn't dare to look up, but now he can express himself clearly and generously, and his face is full of confidence.
The class teacher has changed, how to ensure the quality of teaching?Will the students be able to adapt?
In the past few years, as the school's dean, Yi Ting has been getting along with forty or fifty students in the school day and night, and she is very familiar with the situation of the fourth grade class. In the summer vacation before becoming the class teacher, Yi Ting visited the homes of every child in the class to learn more about the children's family situation and family education methods. After the start of the school year, she tailored the teaching plan for the children and taught them according to their aptitude.
This semester, we have continued some of the good practices of Ms. Ouyang Qiandan, and used the advantages of small class teaching to design classroom activities and teaching methods to guide each child to actively use their brains and stimulate their enthusiasm for learning. Yi Ting said that in the classroom, she tries to replace long-term knowledge teaching with questions and dialogues, and students also have the opportunity to fully express themselves.
In 2020, the "Opinions of the General Office of the Hunan Provincial People's Government on Further Strengthening the Construction and Management of Small-scale Rural Schools" was released, proposing to deepen the teaching reform, give full play to the advantages of small-class teaching, adopt more flexible education and teaching methods, strengthen personalized teaching and targeted tutoring, and improve the education level of small-scale rural schools.
Compared with urban schools, classes in small-scale rural schools are more like 'small stoves' for students. Yi Ting said that for teachers, they can also grasp the situation of the students in the class more calmly and arrange the teaching content reasonably.
Today, among the 9 teachers in Jintang Primary School, there are 2 teachers from the school and 7 volunteer teachers. Among them, there are 2 district-level backbone teachers.
Teachers are the key to improving the quality of teaching. In Xiangjiang New Area, volunteer teachers have become a new force to make up for the shortcomings of teachers in small-scale rural schools.
Every teacher who goes to the rural school to teach has been selected through layers of selection, and the best of the best are selected. Li Xiaoli, director of the Basic Education Department of the Education Bureau of Xiangjiang New District, introduced that after the education department releases the selection plan for teachers every year, the teachers sign up by themselves, and their schools are graded and selected according to their teaching performance and work performance.
The Education Bureau of Xiangjiang New Area has clarified that rural education work experience is a necessary condition for evaluating the title of senior teachers. Teachers who go to rural areas to teach can enjoy the rural talent allowance and the township work subsidy. The Teacher's Day Commendation Program has set up a separate Rural Education Award to fully affirm the outstanding teachers who teach in rural areas.
Li Xiaoli told reporters that in order to make the volunteer teachers more suitable for the characteristics of rural teaching, the Education Bureau will train them every year. The central schools in the townships and towns of Xiangjiang New Area also arranged for young teachers to carry out pairing activities with volunteer teachers to share their experience with the volunteer teachers to better ensure the quality of teaching.
With the joint efforts of teachers and students, the "soft power" of Jintang Primary School has been continuously enhanced. The Education Bureau of Xiangjiang New Area conducts annual performance appraisal of its subordinate primary and secondary schools and kindergartens every year, and assesses education and teaching activities. In the 2022 annual assessment, Jintang Primary School won the first prize, and the proportion of schools that won the first prize that year was 30%.
How to be both "excellent" and "beautiful"?
Improve the campus environment and optimize the conditions for running schools.
The sun shines through the branches, and in physical education class, Chen Zijian and his classmates run and shoot basketballs on the brightly colored plastic sports field. Huang Shuqing, the usually quiet class leader, also joined in, and the children's laughter came one after another.
The previous cement floor has become a plastic floor, which is elastic and non-slip, and children are not easy to be injured when exercising. Hearing that the playground had changed, Huang Shuqing's mother Zhu Na was very happy.
Huang Shuqing's sister Huang Shuwen also studied at Jintang Primary School and is currently in the third year of junior high school in Lianhua Town Experimental Middle School, with top grades. Originally, Zhu Na could also let the sisters enroll in the corresponding primary school in the city, but in order to take care of the elderly, Zhu Na still chose to send the children to the Jintang Primary School where their father studied.
I never felt that my child's school in the village was worse than in the city. Nowadays, the school changes every year, which makes Zhu Na more determined in her choice.
The Party Working Committee and the Management Committee of Xiangjiang New Area attach great importance to improving the operating conditions of small-scale rural schools, and allocate funds to gradually improve the quality of schools every year.
According to Tan Mingjun, the former temporary principal of Jintang Primary School, since 2021, Jintang Primary School has solved many problems, and the campus environment has been greatly improved
There used to be a long steep slope in front of the old school gate of Jintang Primary School, which was connected to the county road, and there were many vehicles coming and going, which was a potential safety hazard. In August 2021, with the help of Lianhua Town**, a new school gate was built on the other side of the campus, making it safer for children to go to and from school.
In the summer of 2021, the Education Bureau of Xiangjiang New Area carried out informatization construction of Jintang Primary School, built special delivery classrooms, completed the overall transformation of weak electricity, and installed teaching all-in-one machines in classrooms. In 2022, the exterior walls of the school building were covered with new tiles, and the walls inside the classrooms were freshly painted and replaced with eye-protection lamps.
With the support of hardware, Jintang Primary School now has a better curriculum.
Through the Internet-based teaching model, children are able to share a class with students from Lianhua Town Central Primary School and other urban schools, and have a real-time dialogue with the instructor. The special delivery classroom effectively solves the problem of the lack of full-time art and sports teachers in the school.
At the same time, Jintang Primary School also makes full use of the surrounding social resources to introduce special courses.
Yuelu Camp, the practice base of quality education for primary and secondary school students in Changsha, is less than 3 kilometers away from Jintang Primary School and has a very rich curriculum system. To this end, Tan Mingjun has come to the door many times to dock, and introduced excellent traditional Chinese culture courses such as zongzi weaving and clay sculpture, as well as creative expression courses such as small poetry writing. Every Thursday afternoon, teachers from the base come to the school to teach the children.
The teachers of Jintang Primary School also combined their own strengths to set up clubs such as chorus, basketball, calligraphy and handicrafts to improve the children's comprehensive quality in an all-round way. In September last year, Wang Xin, a teacher from Dongfanghong Primary School in Xiangjiang New District, succeeded Tan Mingjun as the temporary principal of Jintang Primary School. Soon, she formed a campus choir to enrich the lives of children.
The changes in Jintang Primary School have also added confidence to the development of the village. "We plan to use high-quality mountain and forest resources to build a health care industry and attract talented people to return to their hometowns for development. With the backing of educational resources, young people will be willing to stay, and the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas will be more vigorous. Zhang Zhitao, deputy secretary of the general party branch of Yunji Village, said.
At present, there are 10 small-scale rural schools in Xiangjiang New Area. The Education Bureau of Xiangjiang New Area strives to improve the quality of education and teaching in small-scale rural schools and attract more rural children to study.
It is understood that in the past two years, 2,299 small-scale rural schools in Hunan Province have been suspended, and 1,417 have been upgraded and renovated. In the future, Hunan will further regulate the closure and withdrawal of schools to ensure the right of school-age children to receive compulsory education nearby. At the same time, we should further improve the quality of small-scale rural schools, and bring better educational resources to children in rural and remote areas from various aspects such as school running conditions, teaching staff, classroom teaching, teaching and research and educational reform.
Coordinator of this issue: Guo Yue.
Typography: Cai Huawei.
People** 2024-01-10 04 Edition).