South Africa

South African Visit to Beechwood - June 2015

During the week commencing 8th June we were very excited to welcome our visitors from Ghana and South Africa. Mr. Mbambo, Angel and Nokwazi had travelled from Nkandla, South Africa whilst Mary and Paddy visited us all the way from Sefwi, Ghana. During the visit we welcomed our guests with an assembly in which each year group performed a song and the Steel Pan players performed too. Our visitors were very impressed and recorded some of the performances to share with their pupils in South Africa and Ghana.

Over the week pupils through all of school were able to get involved with question and answer sessions to further their understanding of life in South Africa and Ghana. Our visitors observed lots of learning in schools and were very impressed with the quality of pupils’ questions and ability to explain their understanding.

This year the Connecting Classroom’s theme was all about the environment. Beechwood and all our other partner schools in South Africa and Ghana have carried out lots of work on the environment. Our visitors brought with them work that the children in their schools have been carrying out about the ‘Environment’ to share with us and these have been added underneath for you to look at. Ntolwane Primary School have also given us some art work as a gift as they were so impressed with Beechwood’s year 2 African art that we gave to them during Miss Hobson’s visit in March.

To celebrate this year’s Connecting Classrooms project, pupils from Key Stage Two were able to join the visitors in our partner school St. Marys High School, Menston. We really enjoyed watching pupils at St. Mary’s perform music for the visitors and we were lucky enough to hear Nokwazi sing the South African national anthem to close the celebrations. We said goodbye to our visitors and new friends before they began their long journey home.

Our theme for this year's Connecting Classrooms project was 'Environment'. Have a look below at all the work that our partner schools in South Africa have been doing. Can you see any similarities between environmental issues in South Africa and in the UK? What differences do you notice?