China Day 4

Tuesday 25th October 2016 

Today we were very excited because we were going to visit Wenhe Primary School for the first time. We were visiting the Shita Campus which has pupils from Grade 4 to Grade 6.  The school is on three sites and has 3, 742 pupils in total. 

The school held a special welcome ceremony to mark our arrival and we were treated to a range of performances from pupils including traditional dancing, singing and an instrumental recital. The children were spectacular and looked amazing in their bright and colourful costumes.  The pupils also gave a presentation about the history and culture of their city, all delivered confidently and clearly in perfect English. 

Afterwards we showed them a film we had made of some of our pupils talking about school life at SSPP. They were very interested to see our school and the kinds of activities we do.  They were especially excited to see George pottering about in his cage.  As we were running short on time, we left them with a presentation we had put together about all the activities we take part in at SSPP and they are going to show this and the film to the rest of their pupils.

We then saw some children performing morning exercises out in the playground which was amazing as they stood in perfect straight lines and carried out the actions in complete unison. Afterwards we headed off to watch a science lesson. This was fascinating to watch and the teacher was superb and showed great passion for his subject.  Even though we could not understand the language, we could follow most of the lesson which was about pulleys and we got to take part in the practical investigation with a little bit of help from their English teachers, who were helping with the translation.  After the lesson, we had an opportunity to discuss it with the class teacher and he explained which parts of the lesson he had improved to better assist pupils’ understanding. 

Just before lunch we met up with the Headteacher Miss Lee who presented us with a gift for our school, abeautiful lacquered plate depicting the Twenty-Four Bridge from the Slender West Lake which we had visited earllier in the week. By now it was lunchtime and we were treated to one of their school meals which are packed in foiled tubs and delivered to each classroom for the pupils to eat. They do not have a dining hall as they have too many pupils so they eat in their classrooms.  The meal was truly delicious and we rounded it off with some dragon fruit which is white with black dots on and tastes very much like kiwi fruit.

Later on in the day, we visited another He Garden, which was absolutely beautiful and we learnt about the history of the house and grounds.

 

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