This is a case study of the impact of rapid industrialization on Chinese school, with the experience of left-behind children at its core. Much of China's remarkable economic success in recent years owes to its policy of 'floating labour', allowing for the largest domestic migration in global history. Workers are allowed to migrate from areas of low- to high-work intensity. Mobility is for individual workers and not families, leading to the creation of a generation of around 60 million 'left-behind children'. Using case methods allied to sociological theory this article reports the phenomenon and the experience of a left-behind child in a secondary school in central China, placed within the context of the impact of rapid industrialization on school practices.