Sports for Peace in Great Britain: November 2010

The latest meeting for our Comenius Sports for Peace Project with CEIP Francisco Giner de los Rios, Seville, Adolph- Dieterweg- Schule, Weidenhausen and SS Mary and John CE Primary School, Oxofrd took place in Weidenhausen from 16th to 20th November after an adventurous start. The Spainish team, arrived safely, if a little late, but the Enlgish teams' flight was cancelled due to bad fog and Mrs Pip Murray and Miss Sarah Danes were forced to spend the first night in London instead of Marburg.

Whilst waiting for their collegeus to arrive, the Spainish and German teachers shared the logo designs for t-shirts and showed the games the children have created for the mini Olpympics due to take place in Oxford in June 2011. They spent time visting the classes and enjoyed meeting the children again.

After being collected safely from Margurg on Wednesday afternoon by Viktor Schneider, the school caretaker, the Comenius teachers were reunited at ADS Weidenhausen and work began on reviewing the takes already completed and planning the next stage of the project.

On Thursday morning the Spanish and English teachers enjoyed the presentation given by the German pupils of the activities they had been working on in the school during the last few months. The event began with music played by the school band and the the National anthems of the three countries were played. The students shared their research into the history of the Olympic games. This was followed by another band who performed 'Country Road', and then year 3 performed Little Red Riding Hood, a traditional fairy tale from the region, written by the Brothers Grim who lived in Mraburg.

Afterwards the students showed one of the ball games they had devised, consistng of two teams and the aim was to knock down the cones on the opposite teams bench. After this exhibition the girls showed traditional and modern dances. Later two more games wer shown.

Presents were exchanged between the three schools, and finally the logos designed by the winning children from each of the three schools were shown.

The finale of the morning was a performance of the traditional English folk song 'What shall we do with the Drunken Sailor?'

The presentation was followed by a tour of the region so that the visiting teachers could see the catchment area of the school.

After a typical coffee and cakes in a cafe, the teachers were taken to visit the WESO factory where they learnt about the production of cast iron products. They learnt that the factory is the major employer of the area and that students from the secondary school become apprentices. The teachers were very impressed by all they saw and the time given to the visit by Herr Michael Kreide.

On our return to school that evening work continued on planning the next stage of the project. Dates for the visit of the English children to Seville and German children to Oxford were finalised, and details of where to stay and how to organise the teams were discussed.

The next day time was spent working on the t-shirt logos, the blog and writing this press release. The visiting teachers really appreciated the support and continuing friendship of the host school and the opportunity to develop understanding between the three schools.

By Mrs Murray