We are looking forward to having our friends from Eastington Primary School (iGloucestershire) visit next Tuesday. Year 5 have been composing a ‘treasure hunt quiz’ based on the areas all over the school to let our friends see every nook and cranny that we love at Charles Dickens.
新年快乐 Happy New Year – A Whole School Celebration of Chinese New Year with The British Council
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On Thursday 7th February, Charles Dickens Primary School was joined by very special guests from The British Council to celebrate our learning about Chinese culture and language.
Mr Martin Davidson CMG, Chief Executive of The British Council joined pupils to watch our sharing of a whole school project on China, based on British Council teaching pack, Snakes and Dragons. Children performed dragon dances, led lantern processions, made their own Terracotta Army models, wrote poetry and learnt maths in Mandarin.
Mr Davidson addressed the school in Chinese, much to the amazement of the pupils and then went on to praise the school for its commitment to internationalism and for its creative learning about China. He has urged us on to begin learning Mandarin so watch this space!
Simon Hughes MP visits Charles Dickens Primary School
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photographs by Frank Noon
On Thursday 7th February, Simon Hughes MP visited Charles Dickens Primary School as we prepared for Chinese New Year in partnership with The British Council. All the children loved showing him their Chinese-style paintings, Chinese writing, clay models of the Terracotta Army and paper dragons. At one point Mr Hughes was handed some chopsticks by a child in a reception class with the hope that he might stay for the rest of the day!
We hope Mr Hughes enjoyed the visit as much as we did!
The visit coincided with the launching of British Council teaching resources ‘Snakes and Dragons’ to support learning about Chinese Culture and language. All the classrooms have been trialing resources from the pack, much to the delight of pupils and teachers alike, as classrooms began to fill with red lanterns, dragons, blossom pictures, Mandarin writing and tales from China’s rich cultural history.
Early Years prepare for ‘The Year of the Snake’
Across Charles Dickens Primary School, pupils have been learning about the culture and language of China, inspired by The British Council ‘Snakes and Dragons‘ education pack.
The children in Little Dorrit and Gargery Classes set up their own Chinese restaurant complete with menus, decorations and a fully working kitchen which made its own special fried rice, spring rolls, chop suey and sweet and sour chicken. The restaurant opened its doors to the ‘customers’ on Friday with a special banquet; everyone had fun mastering the art of using chopsticks and you can see we already have a few experts.
Afterwards the children took part in our annual dragon parade; a noisy and fun filled procession which reached new heights of excitement with the arrival of a new ‘dragon’!
A huge and very special thanks to Leo’s parents who generously gave their time and ingredients to teach our children Chinese cooking – you provided a magical afternoon of learning, and to Sinead’s mum who was equally fabulous and took time to teach us all some Mandarin!
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International Primary School of the year 2012
Charles Dickens Primary school is proudly celebrating after being awarded ‘International Primary School of the year 2012’ in a recent competition jointly hosted by the British Council and HSBC bank. As national competition winners, HSBC have donated £5000 to support future international work.
With this funding, we will be supplying our partner school in Malawi with cameras, flip cams and laptops to further strengthen our communications and support future projects.
Well done to Emily Crow, our International Coordinator, for her winning application which highlighted the continued commitment by staff to develop an effective international curriculum with long term sustainability. John Rolfe of the British council praised the wide range of cross curricular international learning that is taking place at Charles Dickens Primary School and the strong international ethos.
On Friday 16th November, we will be attending an awards ceremony at HSBC, Canary Wharf and will be presenting on the power, value and benefits of international activity at Charles Dickens School.
British Council presents ‘The International School Award’ to Charles Dickens Primary School
The International School Award (ISA) is a prestigious accreditation scheme, managed by the British Council. The Award recognises and celebrates schools that are committed to developing international partnerships which enrich the curriculum and help young learners to become global citizens.
This is what the British Council said about us
‘The panel considered the quality of your school’s international work to be outstanding.’
‘Very good planning and well thought out international activities – very well prepared. Also good use of MFL [modern foreign languages] – French [is] incorporated into cross-curricular activities. A sophisticated, well thought out and well developed global dimension. Some outstanding collaborative work with partner schools.’
The British Council reserved special praise for Ms Helen Roberts and Mrs Emily Crow
‘Congratulations on working so hard to co-ordinate such an impressive range of work’ as the International Co-ordinator! You are a credit to the school and the wider community.’
A huge well done to both Ms Roberts and Mrs Crow and all the staff and children at Charles Dickens Primary. We are indeed very proud!
Hello to our blogging friends in Ranzau School, New Zealand!
Barnaby Class have become blogging friends with a school in Ranzau New Zealand.
Room 8 at Ranzau School have been learning more about Charles Dickens Primary and vice versa.
Pupils at both schools have been sharing ideas and feedback on their class blogs .
If you want to find out more about Ranzau School and Barnaby Class then have a look at their class blogs
http://room8ranzau.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/hello-barnaby-class.html
http://barnabyclass.wordpress.com/
We hope this is the beginning of an exciting friendship!
Bastille Day – Tuesday 10th July
On Tuesday 10th July we will be celebrating Bastille Day. Pupils can wear red, white and blue clothes of their choice. There will be an Enterprise Sale in the playground after school.
Iponga Primary School comes to London!
Last week, Mr Mwagomba travelled all the way from Iponga Primary School in Malawi with three colleagues to spend the week at Charles Dickens. He was really impressed with our pupils’ enthusiasm for learning and said ‘when I return to Malawi I will encourage my colleagues to develop group work so the children share their learning and give themselves time to discuss the learning.’ Here is a photo of him and his colleagues admiring St Paul’s Cathedral:
J’adore Paris…
Look how much we fit in to two days in Paris. Thank you Miss Robertson and Miss Wittering for organising it!
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