Students of the No 1 Senior Middle School Affiliated with East China Normal University in Shanghai have their temperatures taken at the entrance of the school.[Photo by Cao Zichen/For China Daily]

It has been more than one week since Qin Hongyu, a senior student at the No 1 Senior Middle School Affiliated with East China Normal University in Shanghai, returned to school for classes.

"It has been wonderful being back in school where I can meet my teachers and classmates. It gives me more motivation to learn," she says.

"It's a pity that we cannot intimately chat with each other after such a long time of separation, but the strict epidemic prevention makes us feel very safe," she adds.

"Also, my classmates and I cherish this hard-earned opportunity to go back to school. After all, our days to attend classes in high school are numbered."

Qin is among the 150,000 students in their final year of middle or high school in Shanghai who resumed on-campus classes on April 27 after nearly 100 days of school closure due to the winter break and the novel coronavirus outbreak.