In September 2017, our partner school will make their annual visit to Leeds to give us a week immersed in Indian culture. The group will bring learning presentations, dancing, music, arts and crafts to give all of our children the chance to meet first hand more of our international friends in India.

We will use the teachers as a resource, to interview them about life in India but also to find out more about our own topics covered in Spring 2 (for example, when studying Toys in Y1, our Indian guests come prepared with information about Indian toys).

Children will have the opportunity to learn dances, speak Gujarati and also take part in the making of traditional Indian arts and crafts. At the same time, prior to the week, children will review aspects of Indian geography and be sure to understand the context from where our visitors came.

As a centre-piece for the week, we will invite guests from local schools and parents, to come to a shared cultural event. In recent years, this has been made of dance, speeches and presentations by UK and Indian children.

At the end of the India visit, Southroyd classes were presented with a lot of resources all about Indian festivals, gods etc.

Email Communication With Bachpan

From: Sarah Smith
Sent: 04 December 2016 20:24
To: schatrath@hotmail.com
Subject: Southroyd Friends

Dearest Bachpan friends,

We are Year 4 Shakespeare at Southroyd primary in Leeds, England and we wanted to make contact with children in Bachpan of a similar age.  At the moment we have just enjoyed our Christmas fair raising money for our school funds.  It is a busy time of year at school here  we are preparing for Christmas shows for our parents.

Year 4 are performing "How The Grinch Stole Christmas"  and we are working hard to learn our lines. We have just read Narnia- The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis if we are lucky we might watch the DVD,  We have been studying the Polar Regions, learning about negative numbers in Maths and freezing and melting in Science.

We break up for Christmas on the 16 December and we have two weeks off.  Many of us are putting up artificial or real trees now .  The weather has been harsh we have experienced many days with temperatures below zero and the radiators are on at school!

What is the weather like in Bachpan there at the moment?

Do you celebrate Christmas ? How? Do you have time off school?

What do you eat on Christmas Day ?  Do you spend it with family?

What are you learning about at the moment at school?

Do you celebrate the New Year on the 31st ?   Are there any special traditions?  We make new years resolutions do you?

We eagerly await your response to find out more about your school life and home life.

With best wishes

Your Southroyd friends

Year 4 Shakespeare

Mrs Smith's class.

Presents from India

On our 2017 visit to Gujarat, staff were presented with a lot of gifts all about life in India to share with our children at Southroyd.

Outcomes

All children will be immersed in Indian culture.

All children will have opportunities to learn from our guests, but also to play at breaktime or learn in lesson time, with guests from another culture - and meet them socially as friends and peers.

Children will have opportunities to meet face to face, guests with whom they have emailed previously.

Children will recognise the similarities between themselves and international guests - rather than just the differences of people from other cultures.

During the teacher's visit to Bachpan, children were presented with resources which had been made specially from Southroyd. Art work about Whitby, art work about space and Climate Change books were among the gifts prepared by Southroyd for Bachpan classes.

Children in Bachpan enjoyed watching the Mannequin challenge prepared in Southroyd and also presented their own "mannequins" as teachers arrived at Bachpan.

Children at Southroyd loved making their own mannequin challenge to show all the different styles of learning which occur in Southroyd. The mannequins were playing sport, using ICT, playing instruments and much more!

Thu 15/12/2016, 10:44

David Manton;

schatrath <schatrath@yahoo.com>

Inbox

You forwarded this message on 15/12/2016 10:46

Dear Friends at Southroyd,

How are you all? We are fine here. Just before few days back came from Diwali Vacation.

Thanks for your mail.

It is great to listen that you all are doing hard work for Christmas festival. Good luck for your preparations. Hope you all will enjoy it.

We have read your questions. In Gujarat the winter season is going on. Its cool weather here..

Yes, we do celebrate Christmas in our school. We are arranging different programmes like, drama, group song, dance, presentation etc... We are decorating our assembly hall also. Few students are dressing up like Santa Claus and we are enjoying a lot. We do not have off in the school for many days. We are getting holiday only for a day i.e. on 25th December. We also enjoy this festival with our family members.

We are learning divisions in Maths, learning measurement in Science, learning a lesson ' A bell of Atri' in language.

We do celebrate the 31st December here. We are arranging the party at our home and enjoying it.

Bye all of you.

We will wait for your next email.

Have a nice day.

Year 3

India Blog

Over 500 visits were made to the India blog this year, with children able to follow the visit and find out about life in India. All the classes sent presents to our friends in Bachpan and are already excited about the return visit now in September.

To read the full India Blog 2017, go to the following link.

September Visit Plans

For the forthcoming visit of our guests to Southroyd, in September (18th-24th) we are thinking about how we can celebrate the special events of our 25th anniversary together.

With the visit occurring soon after the Summer break, we hope that everyone will start thinking over the holidays how we can make this year's visit really special.