Pupils at St John’s Primary School in Midsomer Norton took local phrases international after teaming up with a school in China.

After studying China during lessons, Year 6 teacher, James Mcwilliam, took his class the extra mile by reaching out to schools in China, making contact with a boarding school in Guilin. The two classes have since been swapping letters and even got the chance to meet on Skype to discuss their differences in culture and swap some local phrases.

James said: “During the call, a few children introduced themselves and shared our

interests. We taught them about the Easter story, using drawings and actors and they taught us about a festival called the Dragon Boat festival, in which they send boats down a river to meet the resting place of their local God for good luck. They found it especially interesting learning about the different tastes in sports (they love basketball and ping pong, we play cricket and football) and we also discussed food, apparently in China, fish and chips is a favourite too! They tried to teach us how to say Fish and Chips in Chinese (yu he shu tiao) which our kids really struggled to say.

“We then taught them some sayings from us, things such as ‘how are you doing’ and ‘dude’ and even ‘gert lush’. It was very funny watching a class of Chinese children trying to pronounce ‘gert lush’!”

Year 6 pupil, Darcey Wilkins, who was part of the Skype conversation, said: “I loved being able to learn about a new culture, we learnt some interesting new words and I found it really fun!”

Classmate, Sample Perryman, agreed: “It was extremely enjoyable, as a class, we told them all about the Easter story and they taught us how to say fish and chips in Chinese, it was so confusing, but we did pretty well!

The class are expecting letters from their Chinese pen pals in the next few weeks and hope to continue working with them to explore different teaching methods.