On Jan. 26, both students and teachers from the UK gave thumbs up to Chinese math teachers after they finished giving demonstration classes at 10 public elementary schools in England.

The math teaching exchange program is one of the fruits of the Second Meeting of the China-UK High-Level People-to-People Dialogue in 2014.

More than 500 teachers from over 100 schools in both countries participate in the program, benefiting more than 1,000 students.

“The Chinese teachers let us do many exercises to ensure that everyone really understands,” a 4th-grade student said.

According to Sue Wilson, the principal of a UK elementary school, the math gap widens as the students grow older, and the UK teachers must focus more on the national teaching syllabus to cope with this issue.

Math textbooks from Shanghai are likely to be adopted by the UK elementary school system, said the UK’s Department for Education.

However, many UK teachers believe that there is still a long way to go before the Chinese way of teaching math makes its way into the national system.