Beijing 101 Middle School


Beijing 101 Middle School, also known as Beijing No.101 Middle/High School, is a coeducational public middle school for both boarding and day students in grades 7 to 12. The school is in Xiyuan, Haidian District of Beijing, half mile from Zhongguancun, the city's IT center. It is one of the beacon high schools accredited by Beijing Municipal Government. It has two affiliated schools.

Campus

Beijing 101 Middle School is renowned for its study environment. Its 200,000 square meter campus is surrounded by the Old Summer Palace, one of China's most splendid imperial palaces. Dozens of ponds dot the whole campus. 13,000 square meters of 101 are covered by water. Peking University and Tsinghua University, known as the best two universities in mainland China, are both within half a mile.
The school has undergone reconstruction work since 2005. The school's academic facilities include a library housing 100,000 books and magazines, an electronic library, 100 classrooms with multi-media equipment, a lecture hall, a 700-people auditorium, an information center, a 300 m2 greenhouse supported by NASA and China Space Center. The school has two standard soccer fields, six tennis courts, 16 basketball courts, a 400-meter track and a gymnasium for volleyball, dancing and ping-pong.

History

Beijing 101 Middle School was founded in 1946. The school was founded on the war-torn Zhangjiakou, a town in the nearby Hebei Province. Soon after 101's foundation, the Chinese Civil War begun and both students and teachers were forced to move. After two years of moving, the school entered Beijing City and built its first permanent campus in Xiyuan, Haidian District. This moving is known as "the Long March of 101".
In the first 20 years of its history, the school was only open to children of the country's top-ranking officers. Zhou Enlai, the former premier of China, once visited the school and encouraged students to achieve their dreams at 101. After Mao Zedong commented on 101's discriminate admission policies in 1964, the school was opened to all students disregard of their family backgrounds. Jiang Zemin, the former General Secretary of Communist Party and President of China, and Li Peng, the former Chairman of the National People's Congress, both congratulated the school and wrote couplets when the school celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996. In 2003, premier Wen Jiabao visited the school and encouraged the students to carry on the school's rich traditions. During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 101 was chosen to hold the Youth Camp of the XXIX Olympia.

Early history

Yizhi Wang, the second principal, is the most respected principal in 101's history. As a principal who had led the school for almost 30 years, through both Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Wang made substantial contributions to the school and its students.

Academics

Since 1946, Beijing 101 Middle School has been one of the best middle schools in China. Before the school was opened to society based on the non-discriminate admission policy, 101's special position had brought the school the best educational resources. Before the Education Department called for a change in public schools' admission standards several years ago, 101's student body composed of the top 5% of applicants from each year. Over 80% of the students are enrolled in the country's key universities. 98% of 101's graduates get into colleges or universities each year, almost the highest rate in mainland China. In 2008, the liberal arts department sent 99.3% of its students to universities all around the world, the highest rate in several years.
Unlike most schools in mainland China, 101 runs a very intense independent study program. Over 10% of the students have independent science programs that might take them more than a year to finish. In 2006, an asteroid was named after Zhongyuechen, a student at Beijing 101 High School, due to her newest biology discovery. The asteroid is now known as 21725 Zhongyuechen. 101 is also one of the few public schools in China which offers courses for more than five foreign languages.

Activities

101 was chosen as the Olympic Youth Camp of the Beijing XXIX Olympia. Students from more than 50 countries spent their Olympic summer at 101. Beijing 101 Middle School was also the last leg of Beijing XXIX Olympic's torch relay. The torch was ignited in Olympia, Greece, after 129 days of relay, passing 19 countries all around the world. The torch reached Beijing 101 Middle School and ended its journey in front of 101's Lecture Hall. Beijing 101 Middle School also hosted the 2007 Annual Summit of International School Connection. The school has built a relationship with the Olympic Delegation of Montenegro, a new country on the Balkan Peninsula.
The school's orchestra, Golden Sail, has travelled around the world in the last ten years. In August 2005, Golden Sail Orchestra won the first place of 34th International Youth Music Festival in Vienna, Austria. The school also has a girls' volleyball team which won second place in a national tournament in 2006.
101 holds a lot of speeches every year. Barry Marshall, the 2005 Nobel Medicine Prize winner, Kai-Fu Lee, the head of Google China, and dozens of scientists and scholars have made speeches at 101 in the last three years.

Notable alumni