9X teacher honored at the 2025 Patriotic Emulation Congress

The daysaccompany students

Our story with teacher Le Xuan Bao begins with the first batch of students he took on as homeroom teacher in the Physics specialized class, K51.Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted(class of 2022 - 2025).

This is also considered the school's "golden" class of students, when student Nguyen The Quan won the Gold Medal at the Asian Physics Olympiad and the World Physics Olympiad in 2025. Along with that, students Phan Quang Triet and Tran Nguyen Khai won the Silver Medal at the Asian and European Physics Olympiad. This class of Physics students, for two consecutive years in grades 11 and 12, participated in the national excellent student competition with a 100% passing rate, mainly First and Second prizes.

Recalling the graduating class of 2025, Mr. Bao said that he was fortunate because, as the first head teacher, he had the opportunity to meet excellent students with very standard admission requirements. He shared further: The students who achieved achievements in national and international competitions were all in the top 10 of the Physics class, in which Nguyen The Quan was the valedictorian. Right from the first tests to select the team, Quan showed his outstanding ability because he solved all the difficult exercises with his own way of solving, using knowledge that he had not learned at school. Minh Triet, who was a student specializing in Mathematics, had very good calculation skills...

As the head teacher of the Physics class, one of the strong and traditional subjects of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, Mr. Bao confided that he himself faced a lot of pressure. Because, with the characteristics of a specialized school, the most important task is still to focus on building a team to select candidates to participate in the National Excellent Student Competition and then on to larger playgrounds in regional and international arenas.

With the K51 students, due to the favorable input, Mr. Le Xuan Bao seemed to have no difficulty in selecting a team with all the excellent students. Moreover, during the review process, Nguyen The Quan with his serious learning spirit forced the other members of the team to constantly try their best.

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The race to the national Physics Team is always fierce. Therefore, in addition to the advantage of Physics, only those who are good at Math and those who are truly determined can go to the end. The teachers themselves, who train the team to accompany the students, must also constantly strive to approach the increasingly high requirements of the competitions.

Teacher Le Xuan Bao

Talking about his 3 years as the homeroom teacher of the Physics specialized class (2022 - 2025 course), Mr. Bao also shared about his 3 years accompanying his students in regional and international Olympic competitions.

The most worrying feeling is probably the 2024 Asia-Pacific Olympic Games. At that time, before entering the competition, Nguyen The Quan, who won the national first prize in grade 11, was considered an "extremely strong" candidate and the teachers were just waiting for him to compete to bring home the Gold Medal for the national team.

However, an unexpected thing happened to the team when entering the competition round, instead of taking the test in Vietnamese, Quan chose to solve the problem entirely in English. Therefore, although this test was considered quite easy, Quan only won a Bronze Medal with regret. Later, Quan also failed to be selected for the Vietnamese Team to participate in the International Olympic Competition.

Recalling this memorable memory, Mr. Bao added: In the history of the Vietnamese Physics team, no candidate has chosen to do a unique exam like Quan, even though his English ability is still limited, and the use of terminology is still of a composite nature. When we received the scanned exam from the examination board, we were all worried and defending the exam to achieve a high score was really disadvantageous because he did not use English correctly...

After that, every time Quan entered the exam room, Mr. Bao was nervous because he didn't know how Quan would "turn around" and what "version" of Quan would appear...

Quan's failure in the first exam was also a common experience for the entire team. Quan himself, by the 2025 exam season, had learned his lesson and did not disappoint his teachers. Winning 2 Gold Medals in the regional and international Olympic exams seemed to be within expectations because during the national and international team exam preparation process, Quan was mostly in the leading position.

Accompanying his students from Saudi Arabia to France, Mr. Bao said that usually the happiest moment for a teacher is when he stands in the stands and sees his students win, holding the national flag in their hands. But for Mr. Bao, it is also a feeling of relief.

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Every time we enter an exam, teachers and students often do not talk to each other much and try to make the exam run as normal as possible. The thing I regret the most in K51 is that I did not do my best and if I had tried harder, not only 3 but many other students would have won medals in international competitions.

Mr. Le Xuan Bao

If you do it, do it thoroughly.

After finishing K51, Mr. Le Xuan Bao started a new journey when he was assigned the responsibility of being the homeroom teacher of class 10 specializing in Physics, K54. On the first day of receiving the new class, the old seniors such as Quan, Triet, Khai, Lai, Tien... were invited by Mr. Bao to the class to "fuel" the younger students. Talking more about his purpose, Mr. Bao added: When I started receiving the class, students and parents probably had no idea what a homeroom teacher would be like and I did not dare to affirm that I could do anything for the students. Therefore, I want the students to look at the seniors, to build confidence for themselves...

At the age of 29 with many ups and downs, Mr. Bao has also overcome difficulties with his own faith and determination. Talking about the past days, Mr. Bao said that, coming from a family where both parents were farmers in Kim Lien commune, he had to struggle to pass the entrance exam to the Physics class of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted.

In 2013-2014, the Physics students of Phan School at that time had many outstanding names such as Cao Ngoc Thai, Nguyen Ngoc Khanh, so the competition was also very difficult. For Mr. Bao himself, from a student with a modest entrance, being able to enter the team and twice winning the national second prize in Physics, twice being selected to the second round to select the national team to participate in the Olympic competitions was also a breakthrough.

Because of his love for Physics, after graduating from grade 12, Mr. Bao chose Physics at the University of Natural Sciences as a matter of course.

Later, the opportunity opened up again when he was one of the few excellent students to receive a State scholarship to study Nuclear Power at Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University. The final journey did not reach the finish line because of health reasons, he was forced to change majors before the third year internship. At that time, although there were still many opportunities to study abroad or to transfer to any university in the country, Mr. Bao decided to return to Vinh University and continue studying Physics Pedagogy. After graduating, he was recruited to Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted under the attraction program and was one of the few students who had won national prizes in natural sciences to return to work at the school.

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I feel lucky because in difficult times, I received sincere advice from my old teacher Tran Van Nga. His encouragement and motivation gave me the determination to give up everything to return to teaching without any regrets.

Second, I received the favor of the province and the school because after graduating, I was given priority to work at my old school, a specialized school that is among the top in the country. During my work, although I was a young teacher and did not have much experience, after 2 years of working, I was trusted to be the homeroom teacher, team leader, etc.

Mr. Le Xuan Bao

As a student and later a teacher of natural sciences, Mr. Bao admitted that he was a quiet person, quite strict with his students and seemed to rarely show his feelings or emotions. However, in his own way, he was still close to his students, cared about them and always tried to become a good, responsible teacher. Coming to the teaching profession, Mr. Bao also believed that "if you do something, you have to do it thoroughly" and he always reminded his students of that simple thing so that they could develop their abilities.

This young teacher also shared that when he came to Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, he felt that he was given too much priority. Therefore, being selected and honored by the school and the Department of Education as a typical example of the province in 2025 was beyond expectation: I think at our school we have many more excellent colleagues and all of them deserve to be recognized, praised and honored.

My Ha