Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted

Lê Quý Đôn High School for the Gifted, Da Nang (Vietnamese: Trung học Phổ thông Chuyên Lê Quý Đôn, Đà Nẵng) is a highly selective high school in Da Nang city, Vietnam. It is established in 1986 as Quang Nam - Da Nang Gifted School (Secondary and Senior High School). Like other specialized schools nationwide in Vietnam, the school offers advanced and specialized curriculum for gifted students who show their exceptional talents in the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities. Currently, this is the only gifted high school^[1] in Da Nang city, attracting top students from the city as well as the neighbor province Quang Nam. The school has many students who have won awards nationally and medalists from International Science Olympiads (IMO, IOI, IPhO, IBO, APhO).^[2]

History

Establishment

The school was founded on 15 October 1986 with the name Quang Nam - Da Nang Gifted School (Secondary and Senior High School). In the pioneer batch, the school started with 38 faculty and staff, 58 students in 5 majors. In April 1991, the school renamed to Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted, named after 18th-century Vietnamese philosopher Le Quy Don. As of 2015, a faculty of more than 100 teachers,^[3] who are highly qualified with approximately half of them holding postgraduate degrees (M.Sc and PhD),^[4] serves about 900 students in three grades from 10th to 12th.

Infrastructure

Since the academic year 2003-2004, the city government funded the school to make it a "high-quality school" with total funding of 70 billion VND. The school was then relocated to its new campus at 1 Vu Van Dung Street, Son Tra District. The new campus brought about more learning space and modern and fully equipped classrooms.

Since 2011, the school 11-storey dormitory started accepting student residents.^[5] The dormitory capacity of 149 rooms with 3 size (4-people, 6-people, and 8-people) can support up to 750 students. In addition, the school also provides football field, exercise area, swimming pool and a multi-purpose sport hall.

Principals^[6]

Admission

As a highly selective public high school, admission into Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted is granted through a rigorous application process with entrance exams. The application process comprises two rounds:

• Round 1: Screening based on secondary school records (academic and attitude/aptitude)
• Round 2: Entrance exam for students who pass Round 1.

In Round 2, students sit for exams in Mathematics, Literature, English, and must write a paper on one of the major subjects offered in school. The major subjects are Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, History, Geography, English, French, and Informatics.

In academic year 2015-2016, the school recruited 310 students including 290 students from Da Nang city and 20 students from Quang Nam province.^[7]

School color

School uniform

Blue is chosen as the school color, manifested in the school uniforms.

References