Sarah Jenkins shortly realised she was in for one thing of a tough experience at her new faculty. For a begin, there was the ungodly hour at which she was lining as much as enrol for classes: 7.30am — a time when 16-year-old Sarah would usually nonetheless be asleep.
Then she needed to run the gamut of academics and prefects, gathered to examine pupils' basic manner and uniform.
Jewelry, piercings, make-up and nail varnish are forbidden, whereas skirts have to sit down on the knee. Any mistake, even a minor one, may end in Sarah being compelled to clean the bathrooms as punishment.
It's a draconian regime that appears miles away from the liberal ethos pervading most of Britain's trendy instructional institutions. And it's miles away: 6,00zero in reality.
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Tommy Reynolds, left, Sarah Jenkins and Ewan Miles, from St Davids College, Pembrokeshire, went to South Korea to match colleges and the way they're taught
For Sarah and fellow A-level college students Tommy Reynolds, 16, and 17-year-old Ewan Miles, have travelled to South Korea to see what they will study first hand from the academically superior Far Japanese training system, as a part of a captivating BBC TV experiment.
For years, South Korea has been outstripping the UK at school efficiency and the most recent figures this week from the Programme for Worldwide Pupil Evaluation rankings (PISA) — present that British youngsters are nonetheless straggling behind the Asian 'tiger' youngsters.
Each three years, 15-year-olds in all taking part international locations sit the identical exams in maths, science and studying, and whereas the most recent outcomes present that British children have made some enhancements, they've been outperformed by youngsters from nations similar to China, Singapore, South Korea and Estonia.
For years, South Korea has been outstripping the UK at school efficiency figures
4 years in the past, South Korea was ranked fifth in a maths check taken by 15-year-olds in 68 international locations. The UK — as soon as recognized the world over as a normal bearer for instructional excellence — didn't even make the highest 20, languishing in 26th place.
South Korea has now slipped to seventh place; however the UK has additionally slipped additional down the worldwide tutorial league desk of 72 international locations, dropping to 27th.
What, then, would Sarah, Ewan and Tommy — three shiny, middle-class children from a combined complete in Pembrokeshire with a clutch of A* GCSEs between them — make of the ferociously aggressive, highly-disciplined system in South Korea? As Ewan places it: 'I had no concept what was coming.'
Their 400-pupil combined complete, St Davids, is graded 'good' by official rankings, though solely 63 per cent of pupils obtain 5 A-C GCSEs together with English and Maths.
College days can go on until late into the night time in South Korea, and pupils usually go to sleep throughout their lessons
It's relaxed about uniform: pupils of each sexes put on a polo shirt and maroon sweater with black trousers and footwear, whereas ladies are permitted nail varnish, jewelry and make-up. They're additionally allowed cellphones, though not in classes.
It's a distinct image in South Korea, the place the trio lived within the bustling capital, Seoul, staying with host households within the prosperous neighbourhood of Gangnam.
Whereas Gangnam is probably greatest recognized within the UK for the 2012 pop track 'Gangnam fashion' by South Korean artist Psy, it's a highly-sought after space the place mother and father lay our a fortune to purchase a property inside the faculty's catchment space.
This implies dwelling in cramped high-rise flats which populate the realm. From carrying the strict uniform — 'I really feel like an air hostess', Sarah cries, after donning her knee-length gray skirt and double-breasted blazer — to experiencing the fact of 14-hour research days, the British children shortly discover that South Korean college students have little time for the leisure actions they favour at dwelling ('I in all probability like my PlayStation greater than classes,' Tommy confesses).
Sarah attended in South Korea Suh Moon Ladies College within the South Korean capital Seoul
Sarah, a fresh-faced, chatty blonde whose hair made her one thing of a star in South Korea, attended the high-performing 1,500-pupil Suhmoon Ladies College, the place college students are anticipated to bow to any instructor in the event that they cross them within the hall, and no backchat is tolerated.
As an alternative, pupils excitedly make a splash for the blackboard to fill in solutions to questions — a lot to Sarah's wide-eyed shock.
The identical ethos pervades life on the all-boys Dankook Excessive College, the place Ewan and Tommy found the rigours of seven hour-long classes, with a ten-minute break between every lesson and 50 minutes for lunch.
Lessons with as much as 40 pupils are delivered lecture-style, with college students frantically scribbling notes. And whereas Ewan and Tommy had an interpreter, each admit it was the tempo of the teachings, not the language barrier, that defied them.
Jewelry, piercings, make-up and nail varnish are forbidden at Korean colleges, whereas skirts have to sit down on the knee
'It was so quick,' says Tommy, whose mother and father are each academics. 'When you miss something, you're just about stuffed, as they don't return.'
Again in Wales, their faculty day begins at 9am and ends at three.30pm — a six-and-a-half hour day in contrast with their Korean associates' 9 or ten-hour days, that are adopted by hours of personal tutoring.
'The youngsters in Korea couldn't consider it once we advised them our timetable,' admits Tommy, who overslept on his first day in Korea, making it to classes simply within the nick of time. Had he been simply 5 minutes late for sophistication, his punishment would have been to return into faculty an hour early the comply with morning to mop the corridors.
Sarah — whose mom Sue is a designer, and stepfather Jon is a carpenter — was additionally stunned by the Korean instructing strategies.
The three British college students have been exhausted by the top of their first day of classes of their South Korean school rooms
'It's very totally different to the inclusive fashion of classes at dwelling,' says Sarah. 'At our faculty we've got extra open discussions, however in Korea the instructor talks, you're taking it down and also you don't query it.'
The expertise took its toll: Sarah admits she was so exhausted on the finish of the primary day that she readily accepted her host Sie-yon's suggestion to take a nap on one of many beds within the faculty nurse's station.
Even the PE classes have been a shock. 'I used to be so completely happy that, after these classes cooped up in the identical room, we might be out within the recent air, however in reality it was like a boot camp,' says Sarah. 'All of us stood in traces doing a sequence of stretches. I used to be speechless.'
One maths lesson, in the meantime, left all of the Brits open-mouthed: the Welsh pupils had taken alongside their earlier yr's GCSE maths examination, to see what their Korean counterparts would make of it.
In South Korean colleges the lecture rooms are sparse and the academics use blackboards
The reply was astonishingly mild work: a number of of their classmates had completed the hour-long paper in 15 to 20 minutes, and when the instructor requested who had discovered it tough solely Tommy places up his hand, to his apparent embarrassment.
'Considered one of them was writing extra shortly with a forged on his arm than I used to be — and I had seen the paper final yr,' says Tommy.
Worse was to return: one in all their Korean maths academics revealed that the form of questions they confronted within the examination would typically be requested of Korean pupils aged 12 or 13.
When you think about that 40 per cent of the 16-year-olds who sat maths GCSE in England final yr didn't get a Grade C, it's straightforward to see why British schoolchildren are being so roundly overwhelmed.
If even Ewan — son of an funding banker and who has 12 A* GCSEs — admits he discovered the South Korean classes difficult, how can most British youngsters even hope to compete with these Asian 'tiger' youngsters? 'In a single maths lesson I used to be actually struggling to maintain up,' says Ewan. 'It was additional maths, but it surely felt like additional additional maths.'
The 2 boys swapped their Welsh school rooms for classes at Dankook Boys College, in Seoul
AND it's not exhausting to see why the South Koreans are streaking forward. Ewan's host, Younger Chan, routinely research for 14 to 16 hours a day, and the programme exhibits rows and rows of Korean youngsters knuckling down for his or her after-school research.
'It's exquisitely silent,' a clearly surprised Ewan mouths to digital camera.
Younger Chan — who confirmed he was a drive to be reckoned with inside minutes of assembly Ewan, after demonstrating his capacity to play the piano whereas dealing with away from the keys, together with his arms behind his again — is simply as baffled by Ewan's shock.
'I discovered that should you evaluate the college work you've realized on that day, it actually helps you a large number,' he says. 'The library the place I research close to my home is barely open til 10, so if I wish to end my work I simply come again to high school and keep right here till midnight.'
Training is all the pieces in South Korea, and oldsters there spend extra on non-public training than these of some other nation on the earth
Self-discipline, too, may be very totally different in South Korea: it's exhausting to not be amused by Tommy and Ewan's startled faces when, in a single lesson, their feminine instructor navigates the classroom, wielding a drumstick with which to rap awake sleeping pupils. 'She was hitting their desks, the partitions, and knocking a number of on the knuckles,' says Ewan.
It's the sort of behaviour that will end in a British instructor being hauled up earlier than a disciplinary board.
'If somebody did that right here, the mother and father could be up in arms,' agrees Tommy. 'However over there you get the impression the mother and father would ask them to do it extra!'
Training is all the pieces in South Korea, and oldsters there spend extra on non-public training than these of some other nation on the earth.
Chatty blonde Sarah's hair hair made her one thing of a star in South Korea
Working punishing hours to fund homes in the best faculty catchment areas is commonplace, in addition to paying for the intensive after-school golf equipment often called hagwons, which assist youngsters cram for exams.
The federal government has now positioned a ten o'clock curfew on hagwons to attempt to management their affect.
'They're a phenomenon,' Tommy acknowledges. 'The youngsters don't get evenings off, they don't get weekends off. The boy I used to be staying with did hagwons 5 nights per week and spent most of Sunday at one.
'They're all simply so pushed. I discovered them fairly tiring after an intense day in school.'
But whereas the South Korean ethos might have proved exhausting for British children, the distinction within the youngsters's attainment is palpable.
The British youngsters who visited South Korea have been impressed by the extent of respect academics commanded and the strict self-discipline in colleges
In an English grammar check at one hagwon he attended, Tommy answered 4 questions wrongly — although he was the one native speaker. 'That wasn't an important second,' he admits, humiliated.Not that Tommy could be blamed for his shaky grasp of English grammar — British colleges largely stopped instructing it within the 1960s.
Final yr, nonetheless, it was revealed that academics are having to return to the classroom for remedial classes, as a result of a lot of them lack the abilities to show major faculty pupils taking rigorous new exams this summer time.
Nobody can accuse the South Korean system of missing rigour. Sarah, who's finding out maths, chemistry and biology at A-level and hopes to change into a health care provider, was astounded by Han Sie-yon's work ethic.
Han Sie-yon had as much as 4 hours intensive non-public tutoring at dwelling most evenings, usually finding out till 11pm at night time. Which meant that, in the course of her keep, so did Sarah. 'Usually, I might be hanging out with my associates, however to Han Sie-yon her research ethic was regular,' she says.
Sarah with Sie-yon, her host host in Korea
This 'normality', in fact, comes at a worth: with such punishing hours, pupils do go to sleep at school, and suicide charges are excessive. Suicide is the primary reason for loss of life amongst these aged between ten and 30 in South Korea.
'It's so results-driven that should you're not adequate, you're successfully written off,' says Tommy.
Sarah, in the meantime, says that her classmate's whole temper was ruled by her tutorial outcomes.
'At one level, she received the outcomes for some examination and I may inform by her face she wasn't completely happy,' she remembers. 'I requested how she'd achieved and he or she stated "not good". They're all below a lot strain.'
The query, in fact, is whether or not college students within the UK would profit from a bit extra strain.
'When you've received a rustic getting outcomes like that, then clearly you need to sit up and take notice,' acknowledges St Davids head instructor David Haynes, who accompanied the scholars to South Korea.
'Their work ethic was firstclass, the kids are devoted and the college stays open till midnight most days, which is outstanding.'
In essence, the kids work tougher then? 'I don't assume that's the best phrase. Our youngsters work as exhausting, they simply don't work as lengthy, which is totally different,' he says.
'And sure, they might not obtain at fairly the identical tutorial stage, however they're extra well-rounded.'
whereas this can be true — Tommy performs rugby and is quickly to star as Danny within the faculty manufacturing of Grease, whereas Sarah is a eager swimmer — British youngsters will quickly be competing with their ferociously pushed Korean counterparts for jobs in an more and more globalised world; a world wherein 'well-rounded' might not reduce it.
Not one of the British pupils may deal with the quantity of labor in South Korean colleges — and the strain on them to attain
Curiously, whereas defending his faculty's extra relaxed ethos, Mr Haynes additionally admitted he want to carry prime maths academics over to Britain to fill the scarcity.
'Within the well being service, we carry throughout medical doctors from different elements of the world and so they contribute tremendously to our society and the supply we obtain,' he stated.
'Extremely educated professionals from different elements of the world like South Korea may contribute tremendously to our training system.'
The British youngsters who visited South Korea have been impressed by the extent of respect academics commanded and the strict self-discipline in colleges. However none may deal with the quantity of labor — and the strain on them to attain.
'Beforehand, once I had homework I might really feel a bit sorry for myself,' Tommy admits. 'However now I realise how fortunate I'm as a result of I get time to myself, too — these guys by no means do. They're at all times working.'
It appears it's not simply British children who're deterred by the ferocious work ethic of the South Koreans: their middle-class mother and father are equally fearful that such a punishing system could possibly be an excessive amount of.
Sarah's mom, Sue Jenkins, says that her daughter has by no means wanted any encouragement to work exhausting, however would 'crash and burn' within the hothouse of a Korean faculty.
'The additional strain wouldn't assist her in any respect — she worries sufficient as it's,' says Sue. 'She already has the main target, and I like the truth that her faculty nurtures quite than piles on extra strain.'
Be that as it might, for the way lengthy can Britain's 'nurturing' colleges sustain with their exacting Asian counterparts?
College Swap: Korea Model is on the market on the BBC iPlayer.
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