German Penpal Letter Exchange

In November I made contact with a former Winston Churchill School language assistant who now teaches at a school in Germany and we decided to take part in a letter exchange project with our students.

I selected my class 8CE and they spent some time writing letters in German to the students that they had been paired with. The students included general information about themselves in their letters, giving details about their appearance, family, pets, free time activities and the weather in the local area – all great revision of vocabulary covered in Years 7 and 8.

8CE rose to the challenge of this task and produced some fantastic letters which I posted to the teacher in December.

We were all thrilled to receive a package containing 32 letters when we returned to school after the Christmas break and 8CE were delighted to open their envelopes and read their replies. Some students were lucky enough to receive photos of their pen pals and of their families and pets too.

The students in 8CE undertook this exciting opportunity with a very positive attitude and here are some comments from them about the experience.

Mrs Sweetman

MFL teacher

‘I found writing the letter both fun and challenging and I was excited to get the letter back.’ Jayden

‘It was fun and a new experience.’ Max

‘My pen pal was nice and funny!’ Marytess

‘I found writing to a pen pal fun and it was exciting to talk to someone in Germany!’ Jack

‘My pen pal seems a lot like me. I would like to continue talking to my pen pal – Adim seems like a nice person to talk to.’ Hayden

‘I was excited to receive a letter from Germany.’ Abi

‘It was interesting to find out about how they live in Germany.’ Matthew

‘It was fun writing a letter in German to somebody as you could actually talk about yourself in German – it felt like real life.’ George

‘I found getting a letter from Germany cool.’ Ellie

‘I found writing the letter fun because I was applying my German and it wasn’t just a learning task. It was great getting a reply!’ Jack

‘My pen pal sounds nice and kind of similar to me.’ Agnes

‘My pen pal had very good English.’ Jack

‘Me and my pen pal have lots in common.’ Charlotte

New Themed Menus

This was the first run of the Ruby Railway concept, delayed as another impact of Covid!. Our canteen manager Carol has a menu book full of options and this was just six examples from an extensive range.

The development chefs came in today to prepare and cook the food. They helped with the presentation and train the canteen staff to make it in future.

The plan is to create a themed day each month, introducing students to a variety of foods from different cultures.

One plate is a vegetarian version and one is a meat based menu.