Last Thursday,a series of colourful activities were organized to extend our warmly welcome to our guests:a group of foreign teachers from our sister school.

The foreign friends attend quit a few optional course representative of our school.But they visited the school gallery.It is housed a lot of art works created by students from Grade 3,included calligraphy(书法),and Chinese paintings.Which impressed them most was the pleasant learning atmosphere of his school.

Apart from strengthening the friendship among the two schools,these activities gave us better understanding of our own culture.

Here comes a new notice. Students in first and second grade should have no written exams while students in other     1     (grade) at primary schools should only have one final exam for every semester, the Ministry of Education said    2     Monday.

In a new notice aimed at    3     (reduce) the excessive academic workload of primary and middle school students, the ministry said middle schools are allowed    4     (organize) one test at the middle of the semester and one at the end of the semester.

Some schools have organized too many tests,    5     are too difficult. As    6     result, students have to frequently study hard, leading to exam-oriented education and a heavy study burden. Meanwhile, the practice has harmed the students’ psychological and physical health and must    7     (correct).

Local education authorities should not organize regional or interscholastic exams,and schools and classes should not organize weekly or monthly tests the notice said.

In addition, schools should    8     (strict) regulate the content of their final exams and make sure that the    9     (difficult) does not exceed the national syllabus.

The exam questions should focus on basic knowledge and skills, and the number of questions    10     (focus) on rote (机械的) memory should be reduced.

Moreover, the exam results should be divided into four to five grades, without giving specific scores.

Our school came up with an innovative program to promote a traditional value of honesty. We introduced an activity calling the “unsupervised examination” for some of the classes. That means during this examination, there is no teacher present to oversee the student. Before taking this examination, students need to sign up a letter of commitment. Students expressed that it’s good to feel trusted but they enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere in the examination. We also introduced what is called the “honest umbrella”. Printed on each umbrella was short statements about honesty and other values. At the end of the term, all the umbrellas were returned in one piece, none of them had been lost or damaged. The program works so well that we plan to introduce to another branch of our school. Build a culture of honesty needs the participation of everyone. We hope more teachers and students can get involved.

Students at a primary school in Hangzhou had their first class     1    March 1st on movable type. This is     2     ancient Chinese printing system.

The West Lake Primary School in Zhejiang Province introduced the course at the beginning of this new term. So far, the school     3    (invite) an expert in Chinese characters culture to the campus,     4     major responsibility is to teach students how to use the ancient printing technology. Students attend lectures on the history of movable type along with     5    (interest) classes on typesetting and printing. They then print their own documents, applying     6     they've learned. One student printed her     7    (new) written essay “Do the traditional red envelopes kids receive belong to them or their parents?”   

Known as one of the four great     8     (invent) of ancient China, movable type printing     9     (invent) by Bi Sheng in the 1040s during the Song Dynasty, and it is the world's first system of movable type printing.

The school said the course is intended     10    (improve) the students' awareness of Chinese characters and their appreciation of Chinese culture.

8 . Some teens are disapproving of compulsory BMI (body mass index) （身体质量指数） checks in PE classes. Do BMI checks at school do more harm than good? Two teens take sides.

Maya Meade, a high school freshman in Ohio, says yes. “I understand that schools want to weigh students because they are concerned about their physical health. That’s not a bad thing! But what about their mental health? For many students, appearance and self-image are huge sources of stress. Forcing teens to be weighed at school will only increase the pressure they feel to fit a certain mold (模子)”, says Maya.

In Maya’s opinion, weight is a personal matter that should stay between a doctor and a patient. She says, “Just imagine someone who struggles with body image being told that his or her BMI is too high as classmates look on! Even if other kids can’t hear, no student wants to feel judged by his or her teacher. That’s not why we go to school.”

Maya thinks if a school wants to have an impact on a student’s physical health, there are better ways to do it, such as providing healthy but filling meals, encouraging physical activity and teaching students about nutrition.

Ben Bagbek, a second-year student in a high school in New York, holds a different opinion. “There is no reason why a school should not be allowed to weigh its students and teach them how to calculate BMI! Obesity (肥胖症) is a huge public health concern in our country. And schools are in a position to help students understand what their weight means to their health -- before they’re at risk of life-threatening conditions.”

“A school’s job is to help students reach their full potential, and your health undoubtedly plays a role in your academic performance. BMI is not a perfect measurement, but it can help you identify the need for healthier eating habits or more physical activity.” says Ben.

The bottom line is: When you feel good, you learn better. As long as the actual number on the scale stays private, it should be viewed as an important part of your health education.

9 . A new study, published in Music Education Research, examined whether an extended music education had an impact on pupils’ experienced satisfaction with school. Nearly 1,000 pupils at ten Finnish schools with extended music classes and comparison classes participated in a survey that measured the quality of school life at Year 3 and Year 6.

According to the results, the differences between the extended music classes and the comparison classes were significant at Year 6. But there were no differences between the groups at Year 3. The most likely explanation is the amount of music lessons which was four hours per week for the extended music classes and one lesson per week for the normal classes.

Merely attending an extended education class at Year 3 did not cause differences in school satisfaction. To explore whether belonging to any extended education class would have the same benefits, some extended education classes that focus on visual arts and sports were recently included in the analysis. However, school satisfaction in these classes did not differ from that in the normal ones at Year 6.

"Singing in a choir and group performance are popular activities at extended music classes. Other studies have established that people find it very satisfying to synchronize (合拍)with one another. That increases connection within the group and may even make people like each other. Other objects in the school do not have as much training in synchrony and cooperation as music lessons, which could explain part of the phenomenon,” says doctoral student Pävi-Sisko Eerola, at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

A particular answer may be that girls usually tend to give more positive scores on satisfaction with school and they also make up the majority of pupils at extended music classes. However, the gender differences do not fully explain the observed results. In fact, it seems that extended music classes improve the quality of school life more for boys than girls.

Maybe it’s impossible to adopt the Finnish music education system, but the benefits of having a few extra hours of art and self-expression via music every week are dramatic and necessary.

Going from junior high school to senior high school is a really big     1     (挑战) for Adam. Firstly, he had to think     2     (careful) about which courses to take. He hopes to be fluent     3     Chinese and his adviser     4     (建议) him to sign up for advanced literature. What's more, he had to choose extra-curricular     5     (activity). He failed to join the school football team, but he wouldn’t     6     (放弃). Instead, he joined a volunteer club.     7     (final), he will have to study harder and get used to being     8     (response) for a lot more.