Esperanto information meeting

If your child is in Years 1 to 4, you’re probably aware that they are learning a foreign language called Esperanto, but you might not know much more than that about it! If you’d like to know what the language is all about, and more importantly why it’s being taught to the children at Bar Hill, you’re invited to attend a parents’ information meeting on Thursday 25th March, to be held in one of the Uppers classrooms at 6pm.

Mr Morley will be presenting the Springboard to Languages course that your children are following, and will be happy to answer any questions you might have about it.

Esperanto books and CDs for sale

In response to requests from parents, we now have a supply of the children’s Esperanto book and CD that we use in the classroom. The book costs £5 and the CD only £2.

Usbourne's "1000 First Words in Esperanto"

Practise Esperanto at home

If you’d like to do some Esperanto at home, you can watch the BBC Muzzy cartoons in Esperanto online, or you could ask for your own copy of the picture book we have in school for Christmas! (Parents: you can buy it from Amazon.co.uk or directly from the publishers, the Esperanto Association of Britain).

Great trip to Hungary!

A group of children from Years 3 to 6 have just returned from five very enjoyable days in Miskolc, Hungary, as part of the Comenius-funded Springboard to Language Esperanto exchange project.

All the English and German guests assembled with their Hungarian host families

As well as experiencing a day in the local school, we visited the Miskolc Cave Baths, the Diósgyőr castle ruins, and had a walk in the forests of the nearby National Park to visit some caves.

We wrapped up well to keep warm in the Szt. István cave!

Despite some trepidation before the trip – about whether we would get on with our host families, whether we would like the food, and so on – I have heard nothing but enthusiastically positive reports from the parents and children concerned. The host families were very friendly and accommodating, and although we didn’t always recognise the food, it turned out to be pretty tasty. Not exactly low fat or low salt (Jamie Oliver would have had a fit in their school kitchen!) but it was really, really tasty!

In all, it was a very successful trip! Thanks very much to all the children, parents and staff who made it possible.

Next: a group of Bar Hill children will be travelling to Herzberg-am-Harz, Germany during the Easter holidays (9th to 13th April 2010). Places will be limited, so sign up soon if you’d like to take part!