SCHOOLS minister Nick Gibb criticised the headteacher of Bohunt School after the recent BBC2 television documentary Are British Children Tough Enough? Chinese School.

Bohunt headteacher Neil Strowger had criticised traditional Chinese “chalk and talk” methods, calling them “incredibly boring” despite proving to be more successful.

The three-part series was filmed at the Liphook secondary school, which is attended by some pupils from the Whitehill and Bordon area, and set the British education system against the Chinese, with final exams showing which worked best.

After four weeks of 50 students attending Chinese-taught lessons in a mixed-ability class, the Oriental teaching methods came out on top.

Mr Gibb wants to re-introduce more traditional learning to schools and he said he found the comments “worrying”, accusing Mr Strowger of ignoring evidence.

But Mr Strowger said: “Taking part in the documentary was about looking beyond Bohunt School to see what we can learn from others to improve the education we provide. We already undertake science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) work with major companies and have been doing research in the Netherlands, USA and Sweden - and Chinese School formed part of this approach.

“We have identified a number of interesting findings which we are exploring to see if they can further improve our provision.

“For us, this programme has never been about beating the Chinese style of teaching. To adopt such a binary position would be of limited value.”