TAt the foot of the ancient Forbidden City, there lies a modern and graceful school-Beijing Yuetan High School. Established in 1963, the Yuetan High School is the only one with all six grades in Beijing offering Japanese program. Since its establishment 40 years ago, the school has developed to a window to the outside world. The school has become a member school of the UNESCO Club, a delegate school of Beijing Committee of Japanese Teenagers Study Tour Reception and is one of the key opening units. It has been 'the Advanced Unit of Beijing External Reception' and 'The Advance Unit for Foreign Affairs' for long. In 1994, the school was rewarded one of the first group schools that educate students in an all -round way and run with their own characteristics in the Xicheng District. The school has developed a lot and has been able to receive at most over 6,000 Japanese guests once. It has received guests from more than 100 schools throughout Japan. The school had make remarkable contributions to China-Japan exchanges undertaking, therefore in 1996 the Japanese Foreign Minister Ikeda Yukihito conferred a diploma on the school, in recognition of its prominent contributions to the China-Japan teenagers' exchanges. On Sept. 4th, 1997, when Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaaaroo visited China, his wife paid a special visit to the school. Additionally, the other three Japanese ambassadors also once came to the school, participating exchange activities. The Yuetan High School has scored plentiful and substantial achievements with its gay foreign affair characteristics.

　　At present, the school has 21 classes, 106 teachers and administrative staff and nearly 900 students. The school covers an area of 13,000 square meters. Its playground that covers an area of 6,600 square meters has the standard 200-meter-long racetrack as well as basketball, volleyball and baseball fields. Modern teaching facilities as well as physical, chemical and biological labs are all available here. Classes with electrical audio-visual aids are equipped with advanced phonetic facilities donated by Japan. In the year of 2001, the school's playground and teaching buildings underwent renovations. After the renovations, the school has taken on a new look and is reputed as the 'elegant campus'.

　　The school has put forward to a comprehensive principle of educating students, which put equal emphasis on the education of the six following aspects, namely, morality, intellectuality, physical culture, aesthetics, practice ability and diplomatic ability. The school adheres to giving prominence to the education of morality and combining external reception closely with patriotism education, thus making all the students understand that that represent the young generation of China when communicating with the world.

　　"Promoting the internal development through communication" is another important guideline of the school. The students learn about the world through the exchanges. Competition and the hi-tech in Japan have impressed the students deeply. However, the school insists on the principal "Focusing on teaching" and tries to enhance the students' awareness of serving the country. Bilingual education (Japanese and English) has been held in the junior sector. The average points and the rate of academic excellence exceed the average level among Junior high schools in the Xicheng District every year. The achievement of junior sector has been one of the top ten for many years and some subjects exceeds that of the key high schools in Xicheng even in Beijing. Every year the rate of passing the National College Entrance Examination recruiting line is over 90% and that of passing the key universities' entrance examination recruiting line is over 50%. Our students can be seen in famous universities and colleges such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, the Renmin University of China and so on. Just take the year 2000 as an example, ten students were recruited by Beijing University, Tsinghua University and Renmin University.

　　The school has been fully recognized for its high standard of Japanese teaching. A lot of students of the school have passed Level3 or Level2 of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test jointly by the Japan foundation and the Association of International Education, Japan; and some even passed Level1. The students attained to the excellence at the Japanese Speech Competition and Japanese Composition Competition positively both municipal and national ones. Every year some students go to study in Japan at their own expenses.

　　The Yuetan High School is striding forward to meet new opportunities and new challenges.

A Brief Introduction of the Exchanges with Japan

　Yutan High School offered a course of Japanese language in 1972, and began to conduct exchanges with Japan in 1985. In 1988, it was approved by authorities to be a unit opening to the outside world. Since then, not only the course of Japanese language has been kept, but also the contact with Japan has developed because of Japanese. The school has been able to receive at most over 6,000 Japanese guests within one year. It has received more than 100 schools and guests from education, culture, literature and art, government departments, tourist, journalists and non-governmental organizations.

　　Besides the Japanese teaching task, the school has made remarkable contributions to the Sino-Japanese friendly exchanges undertaking. Therefore Japanese Foreign Minister conferred a diploma on the Yuetan High School. The mainly characteristics of the exchange with Japan are:

　　1. Standards of high level: not only Japanese Foreign Minister conferred a diploma on Yuetan High School, but also Japanese prime minister's wife and three terms of Ambassadors to China visited the School.

　　2. Wide range: Keep in touch with non-achedemic Japanese groups.

　　3. Influence: Yuetan High School has been able to receive at most thousands of Japanese guests within one year. It has received more than 100 schools during the exchanges with Japan. "Yuetan staff" has made remarkable contributions to Sino-Japanese exchanges.