An afternoon in the Royal Box for Mongolian boxing star's school
The last month has flown by and it's hard to believe that it's four weeks since we welcomed students and teachers from all over the world to the British Museum in London for Olympic Dreams Live. Since then we’ve been delighted that schools from all over the UK have been in touch with the World Class team with their memories of the event and let us know what happened when they hosted their partners at their schools. School No 79 in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, is the former school of Olympic gold medal winning boxer Badar-Uugan Enkhbatyn and they are partnered with Park House Sports College in Berkshire. Park House head teacher Derek Peaple and sixth-former Amy met their partners teacher Suran and student Amara for the first time that weekend. Derek told us that “Olympic Dreams Live proved to be a unique weekend bringing together young people and teachers from all over the world to start their partnership journeys to the London Olympics.” Amy was initially worried that the language barrier would stand in the way of them getting to know each other but Amara’s English was perfect and she was able to translate for the whole trip.
At the end of the weekend Suran and Amara were invited back to Newbury for an action-packed three day visit. They got involved in dance workshops, cultural exchange discussions and Amara taught a primary school maths class in Mongolian.
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The school was keen to show their guests the local area and arranged trips to the 2012 rowing venue, Dorney Lake, and Newbury Racecourse. Young sports ambassador Amy told us that as horse racing is a big deal in Mongolia it was fantastic to watch the first race of the afternoon from the Royal Box. Amara surprised Amy by explaining that in Mongolia the jockeys are normally aged four to eight and even more fearless than in the UK.
The BBC South TV team were on hand to show capture the excitement of a day at the races.
Amara and Amy are now firm friends. Amy told us that although their schools’ partnership got off to a flying start, she feels that an even stronger link has been forged between herself and Amara and that they will be friends forever. Everyone was sad to say goodbye when Suran and Amara had to leave for the airport to return to Ulan Bator via Moscow and Beijing.
The two schools are now planning the next stage of their partnership. One of their first projects is for students from both schools to plan and deliver joint monthly assemblies on Olympic and Paralympic values and World Olympic Dreams athletes’ stories. Head teacher Derek told us that “appropriately, the first will be on the theme of friendship.”
What are your experiences of school partnership visits ? What would you show your guests if they visited your school? Please add your comments below.
Comment number 1.
At 20:59 15th Feb 2011, Hasan Ramadan wrote:Firstly, it was an amazing visit because I looked at everything in the school closely. Of these things that attracted me most is the quiet location where the school situated. It is really a nice view of nature. Also, the well organization inside the school, everything there is run by discipline, what I can say in this regard that this school has no slips. The school staff is one unit. The students are so much open-minded and brilliant. Moreover, the teacher with whom I was is so much cooperative and he has not fallen short to answer all my inquiries, so I am so lucky to work with such a person. We had talks with the students about Human rights and Islam and they were very responsive.
As for the thing that I would show, I would show about our school life and he would see these thing from a close range. In addition, I would invite him to my home to show how Palestinian families live. I would show the most prominent place in Gaza strip, such as the old buildings, the universities and the popular markets.
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