The week of Monday the 5th to Friday the 9th of November was truly International on all of ISM’s campuses. Children were transported all over the world as class teachers all chose a country for their pupils to focus on for the week.
Throughout the week, Upper Campus was blooming with lessons, projects and activities to reflect on our world over the past hundred years. On Lower Campus, our youngest pupils thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the food, art and songs of their countries, travelling all the way from France to New Zealand. There was an abundance of delicious international food brought in to each class and nobody left school hungry.
At Rosinka, the week kicked off in style with the annual International Week assembly on Monday with the children dressed in their traditional costumes. Once again, our marvellous parents went above and beyond in their magnificent organisation of activities and transformation of classrooms.
International Week is a fantastic opportunity for parents to share their culture with our children. Some of the activities included Georgian dancers, origami master classes, traditional games such as ‘spijkerpoepen’ from The Netherlands and ‘petanque’ from France.
In science lessons on Upper Campus, pupils researched and constructed a timeline recognising a century of progress and those who have contributed to it. The Russian department also celebrated a hundred years of change by exploring famous people who have contributed to society in various ways.
At Krylatskaya Lower Campus, Year One worked on South Africa and Ireland. Year Two focused on Tanzania and England. Year Three learnt about Mexico, Italy and Georgia , whereas Year Four got to know about Australia, Japan and Peru. Throughout the campus, there was singing, dancing and pupils tasting new cuisines.
Rosinka’s Year 1J’s country of study was the Philippines. For this, a wonderful range of cultural activities were presented, such as making Filipino ‘yema’ treats, and learning how to dance the Filipino Tinikling dance. 1I learnt about Scotland. This provided students with the opportunity to indulge in Scottish food, speak to a Scottish person with a true Glaswegian accent and made tartan hats. 3J learnt about Brazil, showcasing this country’s folklore through a whole school parade, filled with lots of confetti that was thrown around to the tune of ‘Bate forte o Tambor’.
At Krylatskoe Upper Campus, lessons on war and politics were not only limited to our Humanities faculty, where pupils not only examined past conflicts and the roles of international organisations, but also branched out to Modern Foreign Languages. Here, pupils considered the role of animals during the First World War, as well as investigating the impact of the Armistice agreement. The artistic skills of our pupils were also put to the test in Art, Drama and English, with propaganda posters for peace and freeze frames of life in the trenches featuring as projects. Our Computer Science and Mathematics faculties were certainly no enigma in our programme of events thanks to their lessons on code breaking.
As part of our PSHE programme, every pupil from Year Five to Year Nine was given the task of decorating a brick to add to our Poppy Wall of Remembrance, commemorating the end of the First World War. In addition, to the beautifully creative poppy designs, our pupils wrote messages on the themes of peace, unity, democracy, freedom and friendship.
Friday afternoon saw the conclusion of our International Week with poignant assemblies and an exhibition of pupils’ work from the week. Mr Langford also led everyone in a sing-along medley of wartime songs. Many of the school community wore poppies that had been purchased as part of the Royal British Legion’s annual Poppy Appeal to remember and support service personnel and their families affected by war.
Our International Week was truly a period full of reflection about the past which brought about memories that will live long in our minds.
