Culture and Festivals Week - November 2017

 

To support building a positive school community that recognises the importance of ‘achieving together’ the Humanities faculty organised Culture Fest which was a week of fun activities to celebrate the theme of Cultures around the World.

Various activities were organised during the week which gave the students an opportunity to explore and get a taste of other cultures. Meadow is a diverse community and it was important to celebrate this. The kitchen staff prepared lunch which was food from around the world. Staff and students all seemed to enjoy the food served at lunch time. 

Wednesday's menu from the USA - Cheeseburger and Chips

​All form classes chose to research a festival from around the world and produced some amazing posters for display. The projects ranged from The Tomato Festival, to Glastonbury, to Rio di Janero and Holi just to name a few. Students embraced different cultures, they all enjoyed producing posters to showcase their work.   Here are some of the posters.

Meadow's Museum was resurrected in the Library. Miss Sojka and Miss Bergin set up the library with artefacts from the main world religions, class teachers booked to take their groups down and handle all of the artefacts and helped consolidate what they learn in the RE lessons.

Miss Bergin organised trips to various places of worship; Year 10 went to St John the Baptist Church in Hillingdon, Year 9 to the Regents Park Mosque and Year 8 to Neasden Mandir Temple. The students had such a wonderful time visiting these places of worship and left with an enriched knowledge and understanding of their studies. The students asked such thought provoking questions and took a real interest in their surroundings. Regents Park Mosque were delighted to meet our students and said out of all the schools that have visited the mosque (over 17,000 students this year!), our school were the best behaved.  Photos can be found on the trips on our schools website.

St John The Baptist Church, Hillingdon
Regent's Park Mosque

Culture Club was a highlight for many of our students. Staff and parents (special thanks to Mrs [Lazaro's mum and Azita's mum] who did talks about a country they were associated to and educated us on what life is like in those countries and even taught use the language.  A special thank you to Mrs Terry who talked about France, Miss Robinson who talked about Germany, Mrs Fabisch talked about Poland, Mr Ho talked about China, Lazaro's mum talked about Spain, as did Mr Lois, Miss Chatzittofi talked about Cyprus and also Mrs Muzafarin who talked to us about Iran's traditions. The talks were very popular and the students really enjoyed it.

Culture Club Talks at Lunch Times
Miss Chatzittofi talks about Cyprus
Mr Ho talks about Hong Kong
Mrs Muzafarin and Azita talk about Iran
Lazaro's mum talks about Spain
Mr Lois tells us all about Spain.

Miss Markham kindly organised a display which included a map of the world and profiles completed by the students who are from around the world, this also helped us celebrate the diversity within the school. If your child would like to complete a profile, please direct them to Miss Markham or Miss Bhopal.

 

Many staff and students highlight of the week was the Culture Fest Evening celebrations. Staff kindly gave up their time and prepared food from around the world, or the country that they are associated with, ready to be served at the evening celebrations.​ We had Polish food, Italian food, food from the British Isles, Greek food, Indian food, Caribbean food, Chinese food and British deserts. Majority of the food was home made by the staff and tasted amazing! We had entertainment from Sebastian Creagh who was playing the drums and two girls who joined our celebrations who performed Irish dancing for us all. This was followed by us all enjoying music from around the world and dancing the night away. It was a memorable and a fun night. We are going to make this an annual Meadow event and hoping it will be bigger next year.

 

 

 

Jodie in Sixth Form is with Lex the EAL Dragon. He has visited many different countries.

 

 

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Here are some quotes from parents, staff, Governors and pupils about the Culture Fest Evening.

I wish I had stayed longer. Instead of being sat in my car for an hour I could have stayed to chat more, tried more of the amazing food and watched more talented people performing. Feel like I missed out on a great evening."
Mr Burton—Chair of Governors

I learned the different foods they have.  I loved helping with the evening. 

Jodie—6th Form

 

We both really enjoyed it and would definitely come again. It was really educational and
entertaining. We loved all the different costumes and food.
Ms Appleton (Parent)

 

I learned that Polish food is as good as  British food and it was lovely ! 
Zech–Year 10

 

Everyone’s food is different and it looks similar.  I enjoyed the Indian dance. 
Imityaz – Year10

Even though I am a hindu myself I enjoyed learning about how other people around the world celebrate it.
Ruby - Class 10 AT

 

 

I enjoyed the  different school lunches! Especially the Mexican food!
Jay - Class 10AT

 

It was my first time trying an Indian snack. I actually liked the onion bhajis.
Paul - Class 10AT

I enjoyed the different lunches everyday. I liked the chicken curry at lunch, it was tasty. My favourite part was the quiz at the end with the whole school. It was really fun!
Rebecca - 10AT

 

Thank you so much for the effort you went to. It was one of the best nights at Meadow. 
Ms Gillies (Parent)

 

Thank you so much for the effort you went to. It was one of the best nights at Meadow. 
Ms Gillies (Parent)

 

A great opportunity to see foods from around the world even if my daughter could only be tempted to eat the sausages.  I loved the excuse to sample all the Indian sweets !  
Mrs Duncan—Clerk to Governors

 

 

It was great to see so many people come to the event. The food was delicious.   
Ellen—6th Form

It was a good evening, my mum is from Somalia so she made Somalian food and dad is from Italy and she made Italian food too 
Bilal—Year 8

 

I love Community Events and this was a brilliant example of how it should be done! 
Mrs Rigby - Deputy Head Teacher

 

We linked this week festivities to help fundraise for Mind Hillingdon and managed to raised over £160.00.

 

This was the best week ever at Meadow!!
Jasmine—Year 8

 

Thank you to all the staff, parents and governors who supported and attended this event.  As always - we could not do it without you !   

Miss S Bhopal
Faculty Lead - Humanities