Hafsa from Year 8 tells us all about the morning we welcomed year 8 students from Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres to the Library at Wimbledon High.
On the 11th of February, our Spanish class were lucky enough to meet with a group of French students from Charles de Gaulle Lycee. We waited in the Library for them to arrive and once they did we all found out what we were going to do. We had to make a circuit to ensure that a lizard would not enter a hole by making an alarm system. This STEAM activity was based on the book Holes that the French students were reading at that time. My group came up with an alarm system which made a sound when the lizard came close to the hole. If the lizard approached the hole, it would step on a piece of foil, a conductor. We carefully placed the foil so that all the pieces surrounded the hole, not in contact. As soon as weight was applied, all of the foil pieces would touch, completing the circuit and making the buzzer go off. Other groups came up with various different ideas like trapping the lizards and using bulbs instead of buzzers. After this activity, the French students gave presentations of their own. These presentations were based on the same book, but overall were very contrasting. One group had made mathematical worksheets while another performed their favourite extract. It was interesting to see the sort of style that the French students used to express their learning and was quite an eye opener. To end the session, we all said goodbye and thanked the school for coming over and working with us. I really enjoyed this experience because I got to see the presentations from the students and work with them. This experience made me realise the similarities that their school had with ours. I honestly did not expect this because I had never really thought about what education would be like in other countries. This makes me wonder how much our school has in common with other schools around the world.
Thanks go to Hafsa for capturing so brilliantly the excellent morning the two schools shared. We are very much looking forward to future initiatives with the Lycée!
