May .... A reunion
The VBS (Vienna bilingual school) have links with Great Torrington School so every May for the past six years they have visited North Devon) This was good news for the HLTA's and Mark Freeman to have the opportunity to follow up the Vienna visit that took place in February.
On the Monday evening Mark Freeman, Chris Gibson, Julie Ogden, Trish Palmer and Shirley spent a lovely few hours with the staff drinking coffee and eating hob-nobs (favourite food whilst in England). We met at Braddicks holiday camp where the school were staying. Mark brought along some big books as a gift for the school, this was very well received. The children played football on the green for over an hour with no problems. The views of the beach from here are amazing and the children had been on the beach having a great time.
On Thursday morning Marian (Head Teacher) and Loretta (teacher) brought the 24 children along to St George's School in Northam to see where Chris and Julie work. The children spent an enjoyable hour working with year 2 students looking at designing William Morris prints on the computer. The surprise of being in an ICT suite was noticable as the VBS only has one computer per classroom. Chris then arranged for the school to visit St Margaret's (7-11) where Matt Cole showed them what goes on in years 3,4, 5 and 6. This was a happy reunion for the staff as Matt used to work at Great Torrington.
We feel very fortunate that we were able to repay a little hospitality to the VBS after the wonderful reception we were given whilst in Vienna.
Links will remain with e mails so perhaps next year we can meet again.