The journey to conquer the title of valedictorian of Yen Thanh district teachers and students
Phan Chau Oanh - Xuan Thanh Secondary School (Yen Thanh) is the only 9th grade female student to achieve the title of valedictorian at the Provincial Excellent Student Competition in History - Geography 2. Behind this achievement are the efforts of teachers and students, the determination for the "color of the flag".
Turning point of students in commune school
Phan Chau Oanh is not a student at a specialized school in Yen Thanh district. Geography was only Oanh's second choice after she failed the Literature exam twice in the district's Excellent Student Competition.
When choosing Geography, Chau Oanh received support from her mother, who is a high school Geography teacher. However, the happiest person was teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy - a Geography teacher at Xuan Thanh Secondary School.
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Sharing about this, Ms. Thuy added: Geography is still considered a minor subject, so it is very difficult for teachers to choose the team, there are years when no students register for the competition. Therefore, when a capable student decides to choose and pursue Geography, it means that "the student has created motivation for the teacher".
Xuan Thanh Secondary School is located next to the town.Yen ThanhTherefore, teaching and learning, especially creating a source of excellent students, is very difficult, because most of the capable students in the region choose to take the exam and study at Bach Lieu Secondary School (the key school of the district).
In addition to the above obstacles, during the process of establishing and training the team, teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy also admitted that the teachers themselves had a hard time because the school's social science department only had her as a Geography teacher. To be able to do her job well, in addition to improving her professional skills, Ms. Thuy had to go to study and exchange about the subject and topics with other teachers in the district...

The pressure was only somewhat relieved when last school year, after much effort, student Phan Chau Oanh won second prize in the district's excellent student competition and became the only student of the school selected for the Geography team of Yen Thanh district to participate in the provincial excellent student competition.
Accompanying Chau Oanh throughout grade 8 and the first semester of grade 9, teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy highly appreciated Chau Oanh, because she was a hard-working student, had good thinking, was confident in her knowledge, was a critical and curious student.

In addition, Chau Oanh's strength is to quickly assess and solve problems. This is also an advantage when she participates in the Provincial Excellent Student Competition because in this competition, in addition to Geography, students also have to take the History exam.
Before, I was passionate about Literature so my basic knowledge of Geography was quite lacking. Switching to Geography, the more I study, the more I like it because there are many issues related to life.
To "enrich" my knowledge, in addition to studying in textbooks and following the curriculum of my tutor, I also "self-study" through books, newspapers, and practice the habit of watching and listening to current events and analyzing them from the perspective of Geography.
Student Phan Chau Oanh
9X teacher and record at Provincial Excellent Student Competition
Along with teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy, the process of progress and becoming the valedictorian of the Provincial Excellent Student Competition in History - Geography with a very high score of 18.75 of student Phan Chau Oanh also had the contribution of teacher Dinh Thi Thanh - teacher of Bach Lieu Secondary School. She is also the main female teacher who trained the Geography team of Yen Thanh district with the achievement of 1 First Prize, 6 Second Prizes, 2 Encouragement Prizes, ranking third in the province in Geography.
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After 5 years of directly training the Geography team, Phan Chau Oanh is the second student of teacher Dinh Thi Thanh to achievevaledictorianin this subject. Another impressive thing about teacher Dinh Thi Thanh is that in the past 5 years, the Geography team of Yen Thanh district has been in the top 4 of the province and has had students win first prize in 3 years, many years the admission rate has reached 100%. Unlike other teams, the main core is mainly students from Bach Lieu Secondary School. On the contrary, the Geography team, students mainly come from other schools in the district.
This year, in addition to valedictorian Chau Oanh from Xuan Thanh Secondary School, 6 students won second prize from Do Thanh, Lang Thanh, Cong Thanh, Lien - Ly, Ma Thanh Secondary Schools and 1 student from Bach Lieu Secondary School.
Talking about her students, teacher Dinh Thi Thanh shared: Many students have to compete to be on the district team. But for Geography, teachers have to find students. Personally, after the District Excellent Student Competition, based on the results, I will look for students with potential. Next, I have to contact schools directly, meet parents and students to encourage them to join the team.

Due to many difficulties, one of the first criteria when choosing a team of teacher Dinh Thi Thanh is to choose students who are truly passionate. If there are any gaps in knowledge, she will make up for them in the tutoring and training process. Talking about her job, teacher Dinh Thi Thanh also confessed that although this is a very stressful job, she is passionate about taking on the task of training excellent students and always strives to bring the best results for her students.
I think that in order to achieve high results in training, teachers must be dedicated and devoted to their students. In addition, teachers must also improve their own capacity and continuously learn.
Teacher Dinh Thi Thanh
Coming to the Provincial Excellent Student Competition this year, teacher Dinh Thi Thanh also shared that there were many difficulties as this was the first time the competition was organized according to the new General Education Program and the Geography subject became an integration of History - Geography. However, this difficulty helped her to promote the advantage of a young teacher (born in 1992) and having worked in many working environments (she used to teach at Phuc Thanh Secondary School, Vinschool - Hanoi), with a lot of experience teaching according to the new program.

Previously, after graduating with honors, teacher Dinh Thi Thanh was one of the few teachers who were recruited “with special privileges” through recruitment. Later, she was accepted to work at Bach Lieu Secondary School, which gave her the opportunity to develop her abilities.
I have innovated the teaching and learning methods to create interest for students, not to focus on knowledge but still develop students' abilities, and achieve the required goals of the lesson. During the team training process, I compiled documents, built a sample test bank, and multiple choice questions based on 3 new textbooks. In addition to Geography, I also had to read more History books to help students do well on the questions in the general knowledge multiple choice test.
Teacher Dinh Thi Thanh - Bach Lieu Secondary School
Talking about the exam preparation process, teacher Dinh Thi Thanh also shared the story of the days when she took students home to "eat and live together" with her, the longest time being the days before the exam, lasting up to 2 weeks. "My students come from many different communes, many of them have difficult circumstances so their families cannot afford to take extra classes. During the exam preparation process, because their houses are far away, I asked their families to let them stay at the teacher's house, where they can eat rice, eat vegetables, and eat meat. Many parents even brought rice to send to the teacher. Although the conditions were not favorable, it was the difficult days that gave teachers and students more motivation," Ms. Thanh confided.
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The achievements of the Geography team also contributed to the Yen Thanh team's steady 4th place in the province in this year's competition season with 80/106 contestants winning prizes, including 4 First prizes, 34 Second prizes, 18 Third prizes, and 24 Encouragement prizes.
Although this is the first exam to be conducted under the new General Education Program, Yen Thanh district has prepared quite early, from training, innovation in testing and assessment methods, and building a question bank.
In particular, during the process of establishing the team, we always received attention from the district with many special policies such as supporting the teaching staff, rewarding teachers and students who won prizes... These are favorable premises for teachers and students to work hard together!
Ms. Ngo Thi Hien - Deputy Head of Education and Training Department of Yen Thanh district