Goodbye schools.

Nothing to update this blog with. We with the buddies "usually students who join the Palestinian Lunch Club" were busy in the last two weeks with our Palestinian friends who visited London in a youth Drama exchange.

As it is the last few days of  London schools,  it is my last few days in London as well. I could not say goodbye to the kids because they're so active and busy doing other activities- will go and try to see them for the last time next week!

Our time in your school

Hello, we are Ahmad and Yousef from the Arab Insitute School in Abu  Dis. 

We visited your school Acland Burghley on Friday last week and we love it because it is very different and beautiful. 

We went to different classes. In the first class we spoke about Palestine  and then we went to a dance class and we learned some things. Finally we went to a cooking class and we made pancakes and ate them.  They were delicious.

The school is different from our school because it has boys and girls and also it is very big. The children to from one class to another. In our school, the teachers go between the classes not the children. The time in school is more. In Palestine we have six hours in school and a break of twenty minutes. In London thy have eight hours and a lot of break. Also they make food in the school in London but in Palestine they don't do this. They learn more subjects in London like dance, music and drama, and cooking. But in Palestine we don't. In London the children have lockers to keep their things in, we don't.

Another thing is that the summer holiday in London is six weeks and in Palestine it is three months.

We liked everything in your school. Thank you for having us. Please stay in touch.

Haverstock yesterday

The girls and their teacher, Ms Nadia, at Haverstock are really passionate about sewing and embroidery. Well, they started working on small purses for their oyster cards. Some of them want to do their original country's flag, others want to do their names. Pictures will be uploaded next time!

Camille's quiz

The time has come to do the Palestinian English French quiz. Camille prepared a quiz for kids in schools to see how much they know about Palestine, France and England.

The girls were divided into two teams where each team has 2-3 minutes to answer a question. One of the questions was about food, and another was about famous mosques in each country.

Announcement about the kids visit in the notice board at Acland Burghley

Palestinian lunch club- from Acland Burghley and Haverstock to Arab Institute.

Schools in London

Hello from Camille and Ibaa, CADFA volunteers in London. We have been working on the twinings and links between schools in London and schools in Abu Dis a few weeks ago. We are happy to hear about your activities with the kids in the Arab institute and would like to update this blog with pictures and information about activities we have been doing with kids, in Acland Burghley and Haverstock, whose ages between 13 and 15 years old from 7th and 8th grades mostly.

As for Acland Burghley school ..

Acland Burghley school is one of our favourite schools in London for many reasons. First, it is a very collaborative school where everybody earns respect and shows respect to all. Second, our contact teacher there Mr. Stainsby is so nice, helpful and welcoming. He has been to Abu Dis before and visited different schools there. Finally, the kids in the school are creative kids who love learning and embrace challenge. They are keen to learn about Palestine and be in touch with their twinning school in Abu Dis.

Haverstock School

At Haverstock, we enjoy our time with having two amazing contact teachers who support us during the lunch club. Miss Nadia and Miss Sabah are very keen to help to enhance the links between their school and schools in Palestine. That's why they encourage students to join the Palestinian lunch club each Wednesday.

The work in both schools is mainly about sticking to a plan and a couple of rules that has been provided by Our work person Cristina and our director Nandita. Both the volunteers and the kids in schools are happy working on this plan that contains various activities and things to do.

In the few sessions we had with the kids at the Palestinian lunch club in both Acland Burghley and Haverstock, we introduced ourselves and clarified our roles through some simple ways like using an icebreaker or a game. Then we showed the newsletters and blogs, discussed them with the kids, observed them online and talked about their twinned school in Palestine.

For a kid who lives in London, it might be a little bit hard to know how Palestinian kids live in Palestine. In the process of preparing the kids here for the Palestinian kids visit, we discussed the differences between the lives of people here in London and there in Palestine. For that purpose, we urged the kids to expect the differences which were mainly talking about the culture, food, weather, safety, education system and life under occupation.

Another thing, we answered a questionnare that contains 10 questions about Palestine. The aim of it was to let kids discover things about Plaestine and to see how much we all know, so we work on the gaps. In fact, the kids did very well. They answered many questions correctly. Meanwhile, they wanted to ask kids in Palestine many questions about London to let them know how London is before they come.

We together looked at different pictures of sights in London such as London Tower Bridge, Big Ben and London Eye as well as some places in Palestine next to a checkpoint or the seperation wall.

Peaceful nights in London ..

Meanwhile in Palestine ..

Finally, we wanted to tell the Palestinian kids who are coming in a couple of weeks that people in London are so excited to meet them.

Cheers,

Camille and Ibaa :)

Maps of Abu Dis

In the short amount of time we had with grade 8 we tried to do as many activities as possible. In one of our sessions we thought it would be a good idea to ask the boys to draw up maps of where they live, and their school, to show the students in Achland Burhley. We began the lesson by asking the class all about maps and what they are used for and what important landmarks might be on a map. The boys worked in pairs and produced some beautiful maps. Both classes took to the activity very well and seemed eager to present their hometowns.. 

It would be great if Acland Burley could draw some maps of Camden so that we could show the boys in Arab Insitute. This would be a great way of strengthening twinning knowledge. 

We hope to bring the maps to Acland Burley when we get back to London! 

Getting creative with twinning

To introduce twinning we ran a number of activities in our classes. To start off we brainstormed everything we knew about England, Palestine, Camden and Twinning and encouraged the boys to draw and write what they knew about each place. See photos below….. Some of the boys drew Big Ben and wrote the Beatles and lots of them drew the Dome of the Rock and the wall. This activity worked well and the boys were very enthusiastic about drawing and seeing the other groups present what they had drawn.  In the next lesson we turned this into a group quiz, in which the boys had to answer 10 questions about Palestine and the UK and about twinning. Although they were very confused at first they welcomed the new idea with enthusiasm.