History
Xiaoshi Middle School was established in 1912. The first principal was Shen Xianghan (陈祥翰). As a school built one year after the Chinese Nationalist Revolution (1911), Xiaoshi Middle School was dedicated to the mission of bringing new thoughts to China and nurturing talents for the Chinese society, which was under drastic changes then.
The founders of the school, He Yujie (何育杰), Ye Bingliang (叶秉良), Chen Xunzheng (陈训正) and Qian Baohang (钱保杭) organized "Xiaoshi Academic Community" under the guidance of their declared motto "with personal wealth and private management, contribute to education and lead the people to enlightenment" (以私力之经营，施实川之教育，为民治导先路). In the February of the following year, Xiaoshi Middle School was formally built in an abandoned site of a primary school. The name "Xiaoshi" came from Yan Fu, a famous Chinese thinker and political scientist, who wrote in his masterpiece "Tian Yan Lun" "The fittest survive as a result of natural selection; We must be pragmatic to truly exploit our potential" (物竞天择，效实储能). Soon after its establishment, Xiaoshi Middle School came to be known for its academic achievements and good discipline and consequently, its students enjoyed the privilege of entering Shanghai Fudan University and St. John University without attending the entrance exams. Later the school expanded and started teaching Japanese, French and German, with special focus on science, math and English.
In 1937, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War wreaked havoc on China's coastal areas. Xiaoshi Middle School was forced to move to rural area and at last stopped operating completely when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Ningbo in 1941. In this traumatic era of Japanese Occupation, Cai Zengku (蔡增祜) organized "Qiushi Academic Society" (求实学社) in order to provide secondary education to Xiaoshi students. In 1945, after Japan was defeated by the Allied forces, Mr. Cai was in charge of the process of transition and formally reopened Xiaoshi Middle School on the 25th of October.
In 1956, the Communist government nationalized all private schools and Xiaoshi Middle School became a publicly funded school. It had been awarded the prestigious title of "the special school of significance" many times and acknowledged as one of the best schools of Zhejiang Province.
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