Tanzanian's visit to St Ben's

Today was a fantastic day as my school was able to host our Tanzanian visitors. There was complete variety on the day and our visitors were able to see many subjects that my school (St. Benedicts Catholic High School) had to offer.

All students participated in the PE session in the first lesson of the day. The boys played quick cricket and this got pretty competitive particularly in the timed innings, but was very fun. Following this we split off into groups to explore different subjects which we were assaigned to. I, along with a few others, went to Performing Arts to teach and learn some dances, We learnt "Morris Dancing" which was a typical British dance and a tanzanian dance which the students from Tanzania taught us. Before we left for Break we combined the two forms into a 'Tanzumbrian Cultural Dance' which was very fun and at times (when we got the movements wrong) amusing.

After break we were put into more groups so that we could go to more subject areas, me and Aizeck went to History where we learnt about certain Medieval Islamic practiced and discoveries. We found out that they the first to discover the length of the circumference of the earth and the first to establish the modern concept of universities. We also experienced the smells and tastes of some of medieval islamic foods, flat bread being my favourite! We then joined up with some more of the students to attend a Geography lesson where we learnt about Tanzania and some the animals and tribal people that can be found there. Ivan led a talk about this which i found incredibly insightful and interesting. After lunch I, along with a few tanzanian students, went to English where we were taught about some poetic techniques such as Onomatopeia and Alliteration and we were able to create our own rap around these.

Finally, we all went to Design and Technology where we designed and created key holders with our names, school logo and link logo ingraved on them. The machine that produced these was brilliant and went 2/3 times over each before they were ready to use. Overall a fantastic day and I hope the tanzanian students found it interesting and enjoyable.

Matthew