Stone Students at Warriner School - Day 2

Today was a different kind of day for the students at the school.  They were operating on a "collapsed time table" schedule so the whole look of the day was different.  The 8th grades spent the whole day in PE, experiencing many different exercises throughout the day.  They beat the Warriner students at Tug-o-War 3 to 2 and the PE teachers there were very impressed with their athletic abilities.

The 7th graders had a "media day" and spent the day putting together newspapers from the Tudor era. They worked in groups and had different roles such as reporter, artist, and researcher.  At the end of the day they had finished products that were shared outdoors.  One of our very own students even won an award for all the hard work he contributed to putting together the final piece.  

Students Visit Stratford-Upon-Avon

The students went to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon, which was the birthplace of William Shakespeare. We were able to tour a few of the historic homes in the area including William Shakespeare's birth place. The town itself provided a lot of opportunities for the students to do some shopping and they were all sure to visit the authentic English Candy Shoppes.  They were able to see the canal that runs along the edge of town and if they were lucky see the locks of the canal open and close.  A great day was had by all!

Stone Students at Warriner School - Day 1

The students had a great time on the first day of school.  They noticed many similarities and differences between the two schools. Among the differences, Stone students mentioned that the Warriner students spend a great amount of time outdoors between classes and during lunch.  They also get a good long break in the morning before lunch, which isn't until 1pm. The Warriner students also have to wear uniforms and their lunch options are way better than the lunch options at Stone. They also have only one lunch session but have a whole hour for lunch!!  The Stone students also loved the baby animals on the farm and wished that they had a farm at their school as well. On the flip side, they found that some of the course work was similar in terms of answering questions about readings and taking notes. They also found that both sets of students take about the same amount of different classes and that the length of classes are about the same as a Stone traditional schedule It was a busy day with a lot of new experiences.

They're here!

After a very long wait at arrivals at Heathrow and almost two hours getting through passport control and baggage collection...our friends from the USA arrived...

 

 

We all shouted and cheered before getting on the bus and heading back to Warriner. The students were greeted by their host families and all disappeared off with their buddies  for a weekend of fun!

Stone MS Arrives in London

We had a very successful trip on Friday evening from Dulles to Heathrow.  The students were great at the airport and were able to find a lot of good food choices in terminal A.  They spent time at the gate charging their mobile devices and singing along to the ukulele.  Time went by quickly as we waited for the flight.  We boarded the plane around 8 and after some seat shuffling, everyone settled quickly. We had lots more to eat on the plane, and most of the students managed to get some "shut eye" (I have some good photo shots of the interesting sleeping positions).  We then arrived early Saturday morning to a very excited group of Warriner students welcoming us after we entered the country.  The students then took a shuttle bus back to the school and were off with their families.  We will all meet up again on Monday...attending school during Spring Break!!  Stay tuned...

Friday 19th February - Last day...

Well it finally arrived... yes a day when we were all in school either as part of a lesson or teaching a lesson. Due to the snow days we also had a 'Monday' schedule which meant 7 lessons between 7.30 and 2.15pm. The students and staff arrived between 7.00 and 7.15 and then got equipped and ready for lessons. Pretty well all students were viewed during their lessons and all seemed to have integrated well.

 

The lessons often felt quite different to UK lessons; no uniform, a different atmosphere and different teaching styles, lots of use of technology but overall a very positive experience. Hopefully the American students learnt something from the UK teachers lesson too!

 

 

We have had a magical time over in the USA it has been a memorable experience and we will not forget it for many years. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks Mr and Mrs Gardner and Mrs Sciabica for all their hard work in organising the trip. Also an even bigger thank you to all the families who have hosted students or teachers over the past week again we have been made so welcome and can't wait to return the favour in the UK in a months time.

 

Roll on the end of March!

 

I will do my best to post my last blog tomorrow from the airport. So long for now.

 

Cheers

 

Mr Scouse

Thursday 18th Feb

Well this is our last field trip day so again lots of exciting adventures for the exchange students. Today we started with a tour of the Washington DC monuments, of which there are a few!  This was in place of the planned visit to the White House which we unfortunately did not get permission to go on...

We started with the FDR monument:

Closely followed by the Martin Luther King memorial, Washington memorial, and then my personal favourite the Lincoln Memorial.

 

As we had missed out on our White House visits we decided to go and have a photo opportunity there too! As always the students were really well behaved and a credit to the school. We have been blessed in the second half of the week with great weather in terms of sunshine but very cold...

 

 

We finished the day at the 'Newseum' not a typo! Which is a museum all about the news. We started off with a lesson about the President and the media which the students engaged well with before having to operate as 'spin doctors' for the President.

 

 

 

The Vietnam and 9/11 section were particularly thought provoking, the Pulitzer award winning photos were also amazing but quite shocking at times. We have seven lessons in school tomorrow so back to business with a bump. I will add some pics of the students in classes tomorrow.

 

That's all for now

 

 

Mr Scouse