Strengthening the links

Over the past few lessons, I have aimed to familiarise the students with Acland Burghley School as much as I can.

Following on from the last lesson where we looked at the school's prospectus, I asked them refresher questions to see what they had remembered and thankfully, they had done their work. I put the boys in the computer room and let them look at the school's website and asked them to give me one interesting fact about the school. Many were basic, some more interesting. But in the process, the kids are hopefully beginning to see and appreciate the values of the link.

I also introduced Rob, our contact at Acland Burghley and the Friday afternoon Palestine club. The children were interested that such a club existed but are excited about hopefully speaking to the students face to face one day: something we will certainly try make a reality.

I sent the boys away with some homework; we eventually want to create letters to scan and email to the Palestine club. Rather than just send a normal letter, I asked them to bring in a picture or poem which 'defines' them or means something to them to form the introduction of the letter. Some suggestsions were pictures of the wall or Al-Aqsa mosque, some were poems by the famous Palestinian Poet, Mahmoud Darwish.

Next lesson, it will be interesting to see what they bring and hopefully we can begin with writing our letters!

From Arab Institute to Acland Burghley with Love

A video made by year 9 (year 10 UK) in one of our english clubs to give a message to Acland Burghley.

Introducing Acland Burghley

Today, I introduced the grade 7s and Grade 9s to their special twinning with Acland Burghley.

First, we started by looking at a prospectus of the school and identifiying the similarities and differences the two schools had. The children were all very enthusiastic about how to proceed with the twinning and we began to formulate ideas on writing opening letters to scan and send to the students of Acland Burghley. In this, we plan to introduce ourselves, thank the students for the twinning and maybe talk about the student experiences. The older students are also going to think off interesting ways to introduce the letter such as an Acrostic poem.

Grade 7 hard at work deciding what to put in their letters

For homework, the aim is to bring in a picture that captures the most important thing to them. Let's see what happens next lesson when we type up the letters!