The Ecole Adriatique Elémentaire in Reims made the very long journey to come and visit us on two occasions this week.
Visit 1: meeting Year 5
Throughout this year Year 5 have been writing to their pen friends from the Ecole Adriatique Elémentaire in Reims, the beautiful region of Champagne. They were very excited to meet them, at last, on Thursday 23 May and put faces to the messages they had received.
When the French arrived, the first mission was to discover who was who. After many “Comment t’appelles-tu?” and “What’s your name?”, all children, French and English, ended up with the right sticker name.
We were so lucky with the weather that the rest of the day was spent mainly outside: class 8S had organised some great games for the morning and put a lot of thought into how the children could best use the language they are learning. They lead games of bingo, Who Am I, Twister, and even some skillful football - some with sweet prizes! The children went on a giant treasure hunt during which the mixed teams had to use English and French and work well together to be fast and have a chance to win.
We played more games in the afternoon, diamond cricket and other very English games, thanks to the fabulous skills of Mr Geffen, Mr Whitehouse, Mrs Smith and Mrs Sleep.
The assembly was a must and certainly a new experience for the French children. After the Headmaster Awards and children’s successes were celebrated, the atmosphere of the assembly completely changed as Mr Cousens got everyone on their feet to dance to mark Westbourne's Positivity Week! It was a very positive and happy moment.
There was definitely more mingling and communication by the end of the day, with confidence was growing on both sides, and all children had a fun, inspiring and stimulating day.
“We had a wonderful day with the French children doing lots of different activities.”
Euan C
Visit 2: meeting Year 7 and Year 4
The pupils from the Ecole Adriatique Elémentaire came to visit our Year 7s. The aim was to speak French and as we are working on the topic “My house” we played Cluedo. Class 8S had spent time and used their talent to prepare a new version of the game, with interesting weapons you could easily find in the house, such as pillows and chainsaws! Although the game was short, some budding detectives soon discovered which member of the family had done it, where and with what weapon.
Miss Tilling’s Year 4 also met the French children and discovered that their game of “Lucky Luke” is no different from our game of Splat. It was such a good experience to play with the French, another positive, fun activity during our Positivity Week!
