TITLE:
Differences and Adaptation Strategies of Primary Education between China and the UK from the Perspective of Transnational Schooling—A Case Study of a Primary School in Sunderland, UK and a Primary School in Hainan, China
AUTHORS:
Lina Wang, Meiqi Ye, Ying Zhang, Chen Sun, Wei Xu, Yueyue Zhang, Cathy Westgate, Hongyan Pi, Nadja Damij
KEYWORDS:
Chinese and British Primary Education, Comparative Education, Transnational Schooling, Learning and Life, Education Service System, Academic Cultivation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.16 No.7,
July
28,
2026
ABSTRACT: Taking the practice of transnational schooling (the cross-border educational experience of children who receive formal primary education outside their home country) of a 9-year-old child as the core empirical clue, this study selects one primary school in Sunderland, the UK and one primary school in Haikou, Hainan Province, China as research samples. We focus on the learning and daily life of Grade 3 and Grade 4 students in the two schools, and conduct a systematic comparison across eight core dimensions: grade adaptation (students’ psychological, behavioral and academic adjustment to a new grade level), daily schedule arrangement, dietary support, after-school care, curriculum design, academic difficulty (the overall complexity, knowledge depth and learning progress of academic content), campus services and welfare protection (school-based services safeguarding children’s basic living, physical and mental well-being). Adopting field observation, archival document analysis, case study and cross-cultural comparison methods, this study sorts out official institutional documents and campus operation rules of the British school, as well as daily management and teaching norms of the Chinese school. Based on evidence collected from direct field observation, official school documents and the personal experience of the focal child, this paper identifies the core differences in value orientation, operational mechanism and support systems between the two sampled primary schools. Within the scope of these two cases, the British primary school prioritizes child welfare protection and builds a flexible, diversified education service system. Students of the same age show higher grade adaptation; mathematics teaching progresses relatively fast, and greater emphasis is placed on children’s personalized development and physical and mental health. The Chinese primary school takes systematic knowledge transmission as its core goal, and runs a standardized, well-organized education management model targeting all-round student development. It features a comprehensive curriculum, solid knowledge teaching and sound free after-school public welfare services. This micro comparative analysis of real educational practices provides case evidence for cross-cultural educational communication, and offers practical references for the diversified development, welfare service improvement and international adaptation of primary education in China.