Last Wednesday, 22nd May, Mrs Riley and I travelled to Birmingham by train to meet up with our Comenius partners for the last time with this particular project.
Though we arrived at lunchtime, we didn't meet with the others as they were arriving at different times of the day, but in the evening we met up in a local restaurant and continued our friendships.
The next day, Kevin McCabe, the Headteacher of Jervoise School, picked us up and took us to his school where we were greeted by all the pupils and staff waving flags and singing at the top of their voices along the corridor. It was a fantastic welcome. We met the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, the children performed in special assemblies and the Reception class grabbed our hands, eager to show their garden and tomatoes in the greenhouse. Two boys who were in charge of video-ing and photographing the day, took me on my own special tour of their bigger greenhouse, made of lemonade and coke bottles. It was brilliant! They explained that each class saved their apple cores and banana skins and emptied them daily into the compost bin. We had a good chat about each other's gardens and recycling.
Later we visited the Children's centre around the corner for the pre-schoolers of the area and learnt of their hard work before heading back into town.
Over the following days, the Jervoise School team showed us the Birmingham area with its fascinating culture and history, the mixture of different nationalities in the city, its past glories and industry. It was very fascinating and informative. The weather didn't match Slovakian standards unfortunately and was quite cold, until the last couple of days when summer briefly showed it's face when Mr El-Sayed appeared!
Our last meeting, we all agreed to continue the project through an e-book that Jervoise School have created and for us to contribute to continuously with any projects we work on within our own schools. We got a brief preview of the e-book which looks very exciting and is a wonderful idea to allow the work we have done, to continue and grow long after the project has officially come to an end. It was sad to say goodbye to the Finns, Irish, Slovakians and of course our Birmingham hosts, but we will remain in contact and will spread the word of this excellent project.
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