Chinese language teaching

We teach Mandarin Chinese at all levels, in a range of ways.

We support and contribute to new undergraduate teaching initiatives at Lancaster University.

Further afield our Confucius Classrooms teach primary school children and support teaching in their local areas.

Coinciding with Chinese New Year, our teaching staff visit schools around the North West to deliver Chinese days to around 3,000 children. We welcome children at weekends for our Chinese classes.

Our extracurricular language classes are open to all, and we are an officially recognised test centre.

Confucius Classrooms and teaching sites

Our teaching sites include two Confucius Classrooms, which are one of the most important parts of our educational outreach. Our staff from China are based in these primary schools and teach Mandarin language and Chinese culture to more than 900 children each week. Weekly lessons are a timetabled part of the national curriculum.

The schools also act as a central hub for outreach programmes to other local schools and the community.

Tab Content: Anchorsholme Academy

Our first Confucius Classroom was established in May 2015 at Anchorsholme Academy, Thornton Cleveleys, where Chinese language and culture is taught to all pupils aged four to eleven.

The success of Anchorsholme continues to grow. Year 6 children recently took part in an online exchange with pupils at Yuelu No.1 Primary School in Changsha City. The school has also welcomed schoolchildren from Beijing on their Exchange Programme. And in weekly Generation Friends sessions at the local library, Year 1 children teach Mandarin to older generations in the community.

Anchorsholme Academy website

Tab Content: Hawes Side Academy

Hawes Side in Blackpool became our second Confucius Classroom in March 2017, having introduced Mandarin to their curriculum in 2012. Chinese teaching to all Key Stage 2 children has gone from strength to strength. They provide outreach to seven local schools and have submitted their Mandarin teaching for Ofsted inspection.

Hawes Side aims to build confidence in children through learning opportunities outside the classroom, such as performing arts. Our Confucius teachers support this approach, and pupils recently performed a dance from the musical Mulan for Schools Alive, at the Opera House, Winter Gardens, Blackpool.

Hawes Side Academy website

Tab Content: Tullie, museum and art gallery

Tullie in Carlisle is the only Confucius Institute teaching site within a museum and art gallery in the UK, and the first in a non-school setting. Tullie promote Chinese culture, develop links with Chinese museums, and host performers from China.

Confucius Institute staff deliver the award-winning museum’s China Engagement Programme, virtual school language courses and adult language classes. They organised Carlisle’s first ever Chinese New Year Festival and continue to run this.

Confucius teachers also deliver online Chinese language and culture assemblies to around 1,000 children a year, in Carlisle and to remote locations along the west coast of Cumbria as far as Workington.

Tullie website

Tab Content: Grosvenor Park Primary School

Morecambe and Heysham Grosvenor Park is our nearest local teaching site, where 240 children in Key Stage 2 have been learning Chinese since 2019. The curriculum in other subjects is incorporated into Chinese teaching, so pupils can see other subjects from a different perspective.

Their work has great social value and children who come from Chinese backgrounds can validate their international heritage.

Grosvenor Park website

Tab Content: Lancaster University Leipzig

Our newest teaching site established in September 2023, Leipzig is a branch campus of Lancaster University and welcomes German, EU and international students. Leipzig enables us to take our Chinese language teaching and cultural activities global, support Lancaster University’s transnational education agenda, and align with South China University of Technology’s Confucius Institute partnership in Germany.

Lancaster University Leipzig website

Chinese Days in schools

Our Confucius teachers run Chinese Days in schools teaching Chinese language and culture, typically around Chinese New Year and in summer term.

Sessions can include:

Basic Mandarin Chinese language.
Learning about China as a country, the history, festivals, music and the zodiac.
Traditional Chinese artistic and cultural activities, such as calligraphy, lantern-making, paper cutting, and Chinese knotting.
We can work with your school to plan the day, whether our visit is for one class, a year group, key stage, or even the entire school. We will consider the school’s timetable, pupil numbers, and how many of our teachers can attend.

Our Chinese Days are led by qualified teachers from China. Our China Days are very successful, and we receive great feedback.

"Thank you so much to the Confucius Institute for coming and teaching us about the Lunar New Year. The children loved learning how to say and sing 'Happy New Year' in Mandarin. They were so excited to receive the red envelopes and it was wonderful to learn the calligraphy of 'fu' with ink and brushes - especially as they could take their creations home to decorate their houses in preparation for the New Year. It was a really special and engaging session."

– St Thomas’s Primary School, Kendal

Chinese Days article

We can engage with schools at any time of year, so if you would like us to visit as part of a Language Week, or even for a regular class in your school, please contact us.

Degree Schemes

We offer multiple avenues into studying Mandarin language and culture at degree level.

Degree Schemes

Extracurricular Classes

Our Extracurricular Classes are open to members of the public, as well as students & staff.

Extracurricular Classes

International Student Summer School

Lancaster University Confucius Institute offers a summer school for international students on intercultural awareness for a shared future, at Lancaster University campus.