On Monday 20th February, the Pioneer Federation celebrated their second International Day of the year with a focus on the country of Syria.
With so much attention being on Syria in the media at present, it was really lovely to learn about the country from its people. We were very lucky to have some visitors from the Syrian community, who spent the day with us.
Each class got to spend some time listening to Syrian music and also enjoyed listening to the Syrian children singing some of their traditional songs. They were so brave to stand up in front of all of us! The group then shared some Syrian dance moves and we all joined in with this!
We found out about food, art and dance in Syria. We had Zain, Nour and Hala visit us with their family and they did short speeches written in English all about Syria, their life now and what they miss. The children sung to us and taught us to ‘feel the beat’ and dance to traditional Syrian music. It was lots of fun.
Alongside this, each class took part in their own learning about different aspects of Syrian culture. Reception Class very much enjoyed tasting some middle eastern foods. Year 1/2 Class looked at Syrian Art and then created some of their own images. Year 3/4 Class made the school smell amazing by preparing and serving their own Syrian style salads and sharing them with the visitors to our end of day celebration. Year 5/6 Class really impressed the adults by joining in with the dancing and chatting so openly with the visiting children, sharing their own songs and some interesting moves! They then learnt about the Islamic religion and told us all about the ‘Five Pillars of Islam’ and created some posters about this.
It was wonderful to watch the enthusiasm and share the learning in the celebration assembly at the end of the day. Many thanks also to so many of our parents and carers for coming to share this with us.
Thanks also to Tom Serpell from the ‘Village of Sanctuary’ charity who inspired us to hold this day and used his contacts to arrange our visitors. Also thanks to Nadine Strasman from the Sussex Syrian group for her role in the organisation.
We had a fantastic day and all learnt about Syria. We have made a display of the children’s learning and experiences.
