It is usually more common for UK universities to send representatives from International Office to visit International schools in China for fairs and presentation for recruitment purpose. Academic staff probably are keen on visiting partner universities or HE institutions rather than schools. However, recently, we’re glad to see that several UK universities sent academic staff to visit China and asked HOPE to arrange school visits and gave students lectures or demo classes, which has been warmly welcomed by both teachers and students!

Mathematics demo class - University of York

For the purpose of recruiting undergraduate students, at the demand of local international schools, overseas university always sent staff from international office responsible for recruitment to attend fairs and promotion presentations in the schools. This is certainly very useful to students who are ready to apply their dream universities and subject courses. However, to help students to better understand the course and which subjects to choose in line with their career development, even for those students who are about to choose A level subjects, academic staff can probably offer both students and school counsellors a more in-depth and specialized outlook. 

The demo classes also attracted subject teachers from the international schools to observe and even exchange ideas with the visiting university academics. Such exchange and even training can, on the other hand, leave the students and teachers with a deep impression on the university and its courses, and become an unexpected tool of branding and promotion.

a group of academic staff across business, media, computer science, engineering

are giving demo classes in local international schools in Shanghai organized by HOPE

This soft approach is also regarded as less “commercial” by the schools, and HOPE has been asked by more schools to offer this opportunities in the future.