Very International People

Transcription

1 Very International People July 2015 Our International School! This year we have been busier than ever continuing to develop as global citizens through our enriched curriculum and all our multi-cultural visitors, activities, celebrations, partnership projects and visits! Below are some of the things we have experienced since September 2014: Day of European Languages all classes celebrated and shared their learning with the whole school. Year 4 were lucky and even did some additional activities with the University of Durham. Connecting Classrooms project established March 2015 with Brazil an exciting new link with a school near Sâo Paulo. The projects planned will include all pupils. Introduction to Brazilian culture through Portuguese language taster session, Capoeira and Samba drumming. Whole school celebration of Chinese New Year a wonderful comparison of cultural traditions and festivities. We were lucky to have two Chinese parents teaching us lots of cultural facts, crafts and cooking. Song for Europe in competition with 26 other schools to celebrate Europe Day May Visit by 10 Australian teachers looking at the education system and curriculum in the UK and sharing with teachers their working practice in Australia. Discovery week to France May 2015 with 22 pupils visiting our French partner school and the historical surrounding area. Brazilian carnival created by Year 1 pupils and performed to all pupils, staff, governors, parents and community visitors. Hong Kong student teachers came in school for a week in June to observe our lessons and teach us about Hong Kong and China, and make some dragon boats with us.

2 Song for Europe 6th May 2015 Gala Theatre, Durham I really enjoyed going down to the Gala theatre and performing on the stage in front of hundreds of people. I loved singing Le Football with my friends. My favourite part was when we performed on the stage with our costumes and pom-poms. I would love to have this experience again because I have learned a lot and am also now more confident. I also enjoyed watching Fat Matt, the host and the other fantastic performances from the 26 other schools. By Lucy Pinkey New Brazilian partner school We have been successful in our application for a new Connecting Classrooms project and have been linked with a primary school near São Paulo. We have been working hard to find out lots of facts about Brazil and Mrs Morgan gave an assembly to introduce this new exciting venture. The first project of introducing our school life and surrounding area has already been exchanged. We made and sent a book about school, photos from Durham and the nearby locality, and a video of the Year 1 carnival. We are excited to find out more when some Brazilian teachers visit our school in September. Some classes have based their geography topics on Brazil, Year 6 have been creating felt hats which represent the Brazilian culture through using bright colours, flags and of course football! They have also embraced their music by having a lesson on samba drumming which is used in carnival. Year 6 made

3 We were introduced to some of the culture in Brazil through inviting some visitors into school. Samba drumming was amazing and VERY LOUD!! We also learned about Capoeira. It was first created when slaves wanted to learn to fight, so they invented Capoeira. It is fighting that looks like dancing so that the slave masters thought it was dancing. A lady came in to teach Portuguese throughout the school. We learned colours, numbers, letters of the alphabet and a lot more. It was a great experience everyone! for On Friday 12 th June Year 1 held a Brazilian carnival. They made and wore bright colourful masks, headdresses and costumes. They entered the hall vibrantly and paraded around while lively music was being played. They presented what they had learned

4 Discovery week to France 11th-15th May 2015 We had to be up really early as the coach to France was leaving High Shincliffe at 4.30am! We all waved goodbye to our parents and were really excited to be going off on our school trip. On the trip to help us were Mrs Morgan, Mrs Luke-Taylor and Mrs Armstrong. Soon after we set off, we stopped so that we could swap our driver who would be taking us to France. When we set off again I heard crunching behind me someone was eating crisps already! At about 6.00am, we stopped for an exercise and toilet break, then we got back onto the coach and settled to watch the film Rio. We arrived at Dover at 11.30am and found that our ferry had not docked yet. When we got on the ferry we went straight for a hot lunch. After lunch we went onto the deck, it was very windy. The ferry took one and a half hours, even though it felt shorter. When we got to France, we got straight back onto the coach and watched the film Ice Age for the last part of the journey to our centre. We eventually arrived at l Auberge des Remparts! At the entrance were two doors and one led to where we would later make some mug cakes and have our Shincliffe s Got Talent show and a pyjama movie night. Through the other door was an elevator which most people took to their rooms. Further down the corridor was a room with a couple of chairs and table football in it, which seemed to be very popular. Across the corridor was another room where we did our workbooks and right at the end was the dining room where we ate our self-service breakfasts and dinner. Upstairs were our rooms which were all on level 2. Each bedroom had bunk

5 On Tuesday we had an amazing trip to our French partner school, l Ecole de Buironfosse. We have learned many things about how the French school is different and of course learned some French too. Everyone had a conversation on the playground together and we had a lesson at the French school. Some people went to the infants to have a look what it was like there. They sang some nursery rhymes and we learned names of vegetables with them. Afterwards, we all had lunch -which the French children didn t normally have at school. Once we had finished our food, we did some P.E with and we taught them how to play rounders. Then the French children went home and we finished our day by going to the clog museum. On Wednesday we went to Les Grottes de Naours, some underground caves which people hid in during the war. We went round with audio tapes in English telling them about each station and how it was used. The caves were treated like normal villages and had traps and sneaky tricks so the people wouldn t get found. The caves had all sorts of things you would find in a town or village at that time. Everybody learnt lots of new facts and discovered things they never knew existed. After the fun time in the caves we went to a park with all sorts of fun activities then had a picnic lunch provided from the cen-

6 On the fourth day of our discovery trip to France we went to see some World War One memorials. First we travelled on the coach to a massive crater where the English bombed the Germans. All the debris rose 4,000 feet off the ground! Next we went to a war ground where the trenches haven t been touched since the end of the war so that meant we could walk through them. It was a fantastic experience for us all. Also in those grounds there were some graves with the names of the soldiers on, some didn t even have names. Last but not least we went Thiepval, the British war memorial and museum where we bought some souvenirs and we saw an interesting movie about the war. It was a very moving but informative and interesting day. We think you will agree that we ve had a very busy, informative and fulfilling year. It is very exciting for us to learn about different countries, traditions and cultures. We enjoy exchanging our work and projects with partner schools in France, Brazil and also Bangladesh. We also love the opportunity to welcome overseas visitors and learn from them.

7