The whole junior school from Nursery to Year 6, welcomed parents, senior school staff and sixth form girls in to their classes over a one week period to learn about living in different countries. Each class learnt about two different countries from their visitors. They 'travelled' to Nigeria, Malaysia, the USA, Singapore, France, Korea, South Africa, Bermuda, Turkey, Italy, the Philippines, Japan, Gibraltar, the Congo, Germany, Russia and Croatia!

To bring the whole week together, Mr Earp, Head of Geography in the senior school, visited the Key Stage 2 assembly to tell the girls why he likes his subject so much.  He explained that Geography is not just about maps and showed everyone some amazing photographs, including one of the world’s longest traffic jam.  It happened in China and lasted for 9 days!  He also talked about the fact that people are an important part of Geography as there are about 7 billion people in the world.

The junior school girls in key stage two are now taking part in a competition to 'send a postcard to Mr Earp' this encourages the girls to choose any country in the world and represent it with pictures drawn by hand, printed from the internet and found in magazines.

We hope that this special week has encouraged the girls to take an interest in the world beyond their familiar surroundings and inspired them to want to find out more.

See extracts from each year group here:

Nursery

Nursery have been finding out about Nigeria. One of the junior school parents bought in some lovely costumes for us to look at and some very tasty food.  We enjoyed trying, yam porridge, fried rice, white rice and stew, jelof rice, puff-puff and plantain.  We have also listened to the story of 'Handa's Suprise', making a large picture about it and tasted the fruits for snack. The girls have also brought in postcards and photographs of places they have visited.

Reception

Reception learnt about the USA and Malaysia from junior school parents which were fascinating. We listened to the sounds we could hear in the jungle and tried on tribal costumes. We also plotted the places we had visited on a world map and painted the flag of that country.

Year 1

Year 1 learnt about Singapore and France from junior school parents. The talks were very interesting and fascinating and the girls really loved hearing about how life in the countries is so different from here in Britain.

Year 2

Year 2 learnt about living in South Africa and Korea from a parent and a senior school teacher.  The girls enjoyed playing African musical instruments and looking through some photographs of Africa.  The girls also enjoyed learning Korean numbers and phrases, and had a real challenge trying to pick up Smarties with metal chopsticks… which is very tricky! 

Year 3

Year 3 learnt about Bermuda and Turkey. The father of a junior school student talked to the girls about Bermuda where they learnt about the daily life, transport, homes and work on this small island in the Atlantic, only 26 miles by 1 mile.  The children were surprised by some of the unusual food, iced buns filled with tuna mayo and hot cross buns filled with fishcakes!  The girls also enjoyed a talk about Turkey from the mother of another junior school pupil. The girls were shown a powerpoint which helped them understand that the country is a bridge between Europe and Asia and excitedly looked at some beautiful artefacts.

Year 4

Year 4 enjoyed talks about Gibraltar and the Congo. The girls listened to some very interesting presentations which generated lots of enthusiastic questions!

Year 5 and 6

Year 5 and 6 enjoyed talks from visitors on life in Germany, Russia, Croatia and South Africa. The girls all found the talks very interesting and asked lots of fantastic questions. They found it very fascinating learning about different ways of life in other countries.