Wheatfield Primary welcomes the world in international week

​​The summer holidays may still be a few weeks away but pupils at Wheatfield Primary School in Winnersh have already been given a taste of life around the world through the school’s recent International Week events.

A whole series of special activities took place to increase pupils’ awareness and knowledge of the other countries and cultures represented in their own school and in the world at large.

Chinese music lessons, Aboriginal art, African mask making, story time in foreign languages, overseas food and even the school’s own mini-Olympic Games were amongst the activities laid on for pupils.

"Making learning fun is also one of the best ways to make it lasting, so International Week was a fantastic opportunity for everyone at the school,” said Wheatfield assistant head Tamara Brown.

“We began by learning about where we’re from ourselves, then exploring the seven continents and finding out more about different aspects of life in all of them – even Antarctica, where we watched the film March of the Penguins!

“One of the most enjoyable aspects was the way we managed to get parents from other countries to come in and bring a bit of their culture to the school, which is something many of the children would never get exposed to otherwise. We had stories read in Zulu, Greek and Hindi, to name just a few – and of course the children were very excited to see their parents come in and be part of their lessons.”

The event was one of the end of term highlights at Wheatfield, part of the Surrey-based GLF Schools trust multi-academy chain, which opened its doors in September 2014.

“The children are already getting excited about the summer holidays, so this was a really fun activity to think about some of the places they might be going to visit,” said Mrs Brown.

“There’s the minor detail of the Olympic Games coming up to in Rio, so we rounded things off with our own mini-Olympics, with the children divided into teams representing different host cities – and London won! A lot of people deserve a big thank you for making International Week a success. It was huge fun to teach, and by the looks on the children’s faces, they loved it too.”