In February half term three members of staff visited our partner school in Gelsenkirchen, Newcastle’s twin town in Germany. It was a short visit, but we managed to see and do a lot. In school we saw many differences; for example children left their outdoor shoes in the corridor and wore “Hausschuhe” or indoor shoes in lessons. School began at 8.00 am and finished at 1.30 with two breaks in the morning. In the first break we all enjoyed a “second breakfast” as the first one was so early! We saw lots of English lessons. We were impressed with the English the children spoke. We also visited an interesting lesson on recycling; there are five different bins in Germany and the children how to sort their rubbish from year 1. This gave Mrs Ward lots of ideas for the Green Team.
We also visited a Kindergarten or nursery (2 years to 6 years) where a lot of time is spent outdoors, whatever the weather. Mrs Linfoot worked with E-Twinners and we were all photographed for the local newspaper. Together with German teachers we spent time planning other projects with our e twinning partners in Poland and Spain.
We enjoyed sampling German culture and cuisine. We can recommend Coffee and Cake in beautiful surroundings. We saw very little litter anywhere.
We were struck by the friendliness and hospitality of the staff and children and had a very enjoyable trip.
We are grateful to the UK – German Connection for funding our visit.
Visit their school website to find out more about our partner school.
http://119143.schulen.gelsenkirchen.de/de/default.aspx
Mrs Linfoot, Mrs Ward and Mrs Bell
