The curriculum of middle school strengthens multidisciplinary immersive bilingual teaching through the consolidation of the domestic curriculum and the integration of international education elements, and strives to cultivate students' learning and language abilities in line with international education. Meanwhile, through the cultivation of interests and the development of special strengths, a solid foundation is laid for students to become international talents with awareness and competencies in making social contributions, scientific innovation, and international competitiveness. To meet the needs of different students and achieve personalized training, junior high school has opened a student-centered program called the Su Buqing College of Arts and Sciences, with is a mentor-led system, and a specialized large-scale tiered counseling and enrichment program called the Woodpecker Program. This further create a better environment for middle school students to achieve excellence in both academics and personal qualities, develop a solid foundation in culture, their extra capacity for learning, and a strong interest in mathematics and humanities, so that they can stand out and become innovative talents with strong learning abilities through a combination of liberal arts and sciences.
Integrating literary elements into regular English courses extends students through increased classroom writing and academic reading, and a further variety of platforms for students to showcase their abilities, such as English drama performances, spelling bees, English voice-overs, TED talks, and English debates, can effectively enhance students' English proficiency. Bilingual teaching combines the study of other disciplines within English, cultivating students' ability to possess both subject matter thinking and an international perspective.
Su Buqing Program
This program is grouped into liberal arts and science modules, and based on the concept of "guided deep learning," students focus on stimulating interest, solidifying foundation, and expanding thinking in grades six and seven. In grade eight, some advanced courses will be offered to align with higher educational expectations for students.
Science and Technology Innovation Foundation
This course is an inquiry-based learning course related to innovation and practice, which is the foundation course for cultivating the scientific and technological abilities of students who are members of the school's science and technology innovation team. The course aims to cultivate students' scientific inquiry literacy and information literacy. It focuses on aerodynamics experiments, and trains students in basic abilities such as inquiry experiment design, hands-on experimentation, and inquiry report writing, as well as team collaboration skills. It guides and cultivates students' innovative abilities, enhances their public speaking skills, encourages them to create ideas through experiments and analyzing interesting phenomena or prominent issues in daily life and learning, and completes their personalized projects after referring to professional websites to improve on their ideas. After completing the course, students have the opportunity to be selected for the science and technology innovation team through selection. During the one-year training period for the team, under the guidance of a professional coach or multiple mentors, students engage in project-based learning (PBL). While completing the project paper, they further improve their ability to discover and solve problems. While developing their specialties, they also achieve high-quality completion of the personal representative work (inquiry-based learning report) as required for comprehensive quality evaluation in junior high school, and participate in various science and technology innovation competitions to enhance their competitiveness for further education.
Physics & Chemistry
Physics tutoring covers physics knowledge that is closely related to students' daily lives and through associated experiments, allow students to understand physics in real-life contexts. This approach helps students participate in the process of observation, thinking, and hands-on activities based on their individual needs, stimulating their interest in the subject while cultivating their innovative spirit and practical abilities. Physics experimentation is not only the basic method and means of physics research but also a comprehensive ability that reflects various fundamental abilities through experimentation. Teachers use vivid and interesting examples and experiments to construct certain scenarios using physics, stimulating students' inner motivation, while greatly improving teaching efficiency and catering to students' psychological need for fun and interest.
Mathematical logics course
This course mainly aims to expand students' mathematical thinking, enhance their sense of numbers, and enrich their problem-solving methods. The course is organized into different micro-topics, each of which is based on the textbook but can steadily improve mathematical thinking through in-depth summaries and extensions. Students can gain multiple benefits from this course:
1. Understanding the problem-solving strategies of classification discussion, geometric equations, and combining numbers and shapes.
2. Developing the ability to generalize and apply knowledge gained from fundamental principles and classic models.
3. Enhancing learning interest through interactive competition and game-based activities.
4. Developing the habit of independent thinking.
Chinese extended curriculum
The planning and content arrangement of this course is inspired by the international Chinese curriculum, with a focus on different literary genres. The course is divided into four major topics: poetry, novels, essays, and classical prose. Each topic combines the ministry-compiled textbook and recommended extracurricular reading materials for middle school students, selects corresponding writers and literary works for in-depth analysis, and introduces students to the lives and the creative literary features of the writers through various vivid forms. Subsequently, students are encouraged to read relevant works. Ultimately, this approach aims to increase students' accumulation of cultural awareness, enrich their cultural heritage, enable comprehensive analysis of literary works and from multiple perspectives, and enhance their cultural appreciation.
English
The English curriculum mainly aims to improve students' English proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The Su Buqing English course is distinctly different from conventional English courses, with a stronger emphasis on practicality to enable students to expand their international vision while deepening their understanding of English-speaking environments.
Reading: Through extended reading, students are able to summarize and comprehend selected texts, utilizing skimming and scanning techniques to grasp the main idea and important details of the article. Extensive reading not only improves reading skills but also enables students to compare and contrast cultural differences between China and the West from multiple perspectives.
Listening: Extended listening training allows students to identify different language environments and tones in audio materials and comprehend contents accurately. Teachers may pose comprehensive or detailed questions based on different dialogues to train students to grasp both the structure and specific content of conversations while capturing important information. Compared to listening practices found in traditional English lesson, Su Buqing English’s listening materials is more practical, immersing students in authentic English-speaking environments.
Writing: Writing training aims to strengthen students' ability to use vocabulary, phrases, and grammar. In Su Buqing English writing classes, students need to analyze the overall requirements based on the text prompts, pictures or videos provided before writing. This training cultivates students' writing, listening, reading, and information integration abilities.
Speaking: Speaking training focuses on improving students' language organization and communication skills, with topics covering different fields and contemporary issues. Speaking practice not only emphasizes how students express themselves but also tests their ability to express ideas logically. Therefore, students need to think critically and express their own opinions based on the basic information provided through text, pictures or videos.
