The Hillside Seminar June 2012
On Tuesday 19th June we welcomed pupils and teachers from our partner schools in Slovakia and France. With their Hillside guides and teachers were 42 in all, and had to work on the very important theme on how we could break down barriers. Most of our visitors could speak English, but we quickly learnt that there was much more to breaking barriers than that, and that language was only one of many ways in which we could communicate.
We quickly divided into groups and set about finding how we could communicate by attending different workshops. They say that music is universal, and this we quickly found this to be the case as we all created brilliant rhythms on the samba drums under Mr Richardson’s expert eye.
Miss McCabe showed us communication through pictures, which were printed onto mugs and then Mrs Carey-Shields and Miss Brown showed us how we can communicate through the art of mime.
Finally, Mrs Clarke showed how important language is by getting us to learn a new one. Everyone who took part can now speak a little bit of Welsh!
Having learnt a how to break barriers, we had to put our new skills into action and went to Crosby Lakeside to learn new challenges and overcome any fears and apprehensions together. We learnt how to use the kayaks and dragon boats, got very wet, but dried out in time to enjoy our evening meal together.
Wednesday was a day out of school. We left Hillside and picked up our visitors at the YHA in Liverpool before setting off to North Wales. We attempted another challenge as we completed a high-level tree top walk before visiting the spectacular remains for Conwy Castle.
Our last stop was in Llandudno for our meal and a chance to practice our Welsh, before returning to the youth hostel for a tearful goodbye.
When we had started on the Tuesday we were nervous, and had built little imaginary walls around our school groups. By the end, there wasn’t a barrier in sight.
We quickly divided into groups and set about finding how we could communicate by attending different workshops. They say that music is universal, and this we quickly found this to be the case as we all created brilliant rhythms on the samba drums under Mr Richardson’s expert eye.
Miss McCabe showed us communication through pictures, which were printed onto mugs and then Mrs Carey-Shields and Miss Brown showed us how we can communicate through the art of mime.
Finally, Mrs Clarke showed how important language is by getting us to learn a new one. Everyone who took part can now speak a little bit of Welsh!
Having learnt a how to break barriers, we had to put our new skills into action and went to Crosby Lakeside to learn new challenges and overcome any fears and apprehensions together. We learnt how to use the kayaks and dragon boats, got very wet, but dried out in time to enjoy our evening meal together.
Wednesday was a day out of school. We left Hillside and picked up our visitors at the YHA in Liverpool before setting off to North Wales. We attempted another challenge as we completed a high-level tree top walk before visiting the spectacular remains for Conwy Castle.
Our last stop was in Llandudno for our meal and a chance to practice our Welsh, before returning to the youth hostel for a tearful goodbye.
When we had started on the Tuesday we were nervous, and had built little imaginary walls around our school groups. By the end, there wasn’t a barrier in sight.