WBS community celebrates its diversity
At West Buckland School, we are so lucky to have a wealth of different nationalities represented in our community. Not only do many of our staff and students have roots in other countries, but many of our students have come to West Buckland from other places to study for the short or longer term. The diversity in our community brings us all benefits as we can make connections around the globe while learning from each other about different cultures and languages. Here are some of the things we’ve been up to this week.
There has been lots of international focus in Modern Foreign Languages this week, with students researching all the places globally which speak Spanish. In Prep School, pupils have been dressing up as French children and learning about different European foods. We had a lovely visit from one of our Polish parents, who brought some delicious cakes into the classroom and taught students about Poland. This left the whole class wanting to go to Poland (lured by the thought of more Polish cakes.)
Sharing conversations between Prep and Senior students
International students in Year 12 spent time in the Prep School, talking to pupils about their home countries. Prep students wanted to know about food and weather, mainly! The pupils said that it was really interesting to hear about new places, with one child commenting that their head was now ‘full of facts.’
Section 3
As part of International Week, members of the book club have just finished reading ‘Dog Runner’ by Bren MacDibble. Jacob Ackland in Year 7 said the book, which is set in Australia in a world gone crazy, is a story about a brother and his half-sister who cross the country with their dog sled to reach their mum. Jacob has rated the book 5 stars and it’s in the library if anyone would like to read it.
Also as part of International Week in the library, there are several displays encouraging pupils to read to books by international authors or books set in different countries. In library lessons with the Prep school and Year 7 and 8, we started the lessons by reading a picture book called ‘The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business’ by Werner Holzwarth, which has been translated from German.
Some of the Prep students learnt a game in French called Escargot, which is like hopscotch. They enjoyed learning the numbers in French so they could play the game.
International Run against Agoro Oyombe
On Friday, our sports scholars and keen athletes, plus some very brave staff, joined in the 1 mile race that took place at West Buckland against our partner school, Agoro Oyombe in Kenya.
It was a very cold day here in Devon but our runners took part with big smiles and enthusiasm. It was lovely to see the Kenyan runners who took part in very different conditions and sunshine replacing the wind chill factor we had in the South West. Although the Kenyan runners beat the West Buckland students, most of the first runners back in the Devon race made the mile in around seven minutes.
The following were the first two runners back in each age group:
Prep: Molly Pettingell. Ethan Pollock.
Junior: Nyla Roode. Seb Page.
Inter: Eden Robinson. Rod Anzules-Argote.
Senior: Reese Robinson. Toby Watts.
Congratulations to everyone who took part and thank you to those that came out to cheer and support.
International Dinner
On Friday night, we had over 160 diners at our International Dinner in the Karslake. Groups of students and staff, under the watchful and supportive eye of our wonderful kitchen staff, made a range of dishes from various cuisines globally, which were displayed beautifully. We had dishes from a wealth of different countries, including Spain, Nigeria, Italy, China, Hungary, Jamaica and even Wales!
The students loved trying loads of different dishes and many of them commented on how delicious everything was. The International Society put in a lot of effort to organise the evening and even included some French poetry to entertain us. A huge thank you to Mr Brimson, the International Society, all the students and Mr and Mrs Robinson for the catering, Gordon Cox and his kitchen team for all the support and help and to our visitors for the Bollywood dancing workshop. It was a very special evening and was a great way to bring our global community even closer.
