A group of Year 8 students attended another very successful Festival of International Culture on Monday at the University of Teesside this month, read how they got on...

A group of 15 Year 8 students attended another very successful Festival of International Culture on Monday March 18th at the University of Teesside. The event was organised by routes.ne which is a consortium of universities working together with schools and colleges, to enthuse and encourage people to study different languages and cultures.

The Festival comprised all sorts of different activities to raise awareness of the need for language learning in the UK. They were fun, active and practical which allowed students to learn about new languages and cultures. Our students learned Arabic, Portuguese; discovered more about the Brazilian martial art called Capoeira and tried out Chinese Crafts. African drumming and Italian was also available to other schools on the day.

All the students learnt something new on the day and were also able to consider the benefits and opportunities that language learning can offer as well as have an idea of what life in higher education is like.

You will see from the photo attached that great fun was had by all on the day and special awards should go to the great cart-wheelers of the day including Miss Casado, our Spanish assistant, who accompanied Mrs Storey and the students on the visit!

We should also send a huge thanks to all the undergraduates from Newcastle University who helped deliver an exciting programme and offer much advice on the day. Doug and Marcia who were our marshals for the day were great ambassadors for languages and the university! It was great to see many of them again as a lot of them had already worked with our Year Nines earlier in the year.