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Well, here we are…our Netherlands project has finally arrived. As I have blogged about previously, we are working, for the first time, with a school in Terneuzen in the Netherlands on a joint History project. In April, they came over to us to work on a project about Victorians etc… and it proved a great success. I can’t believe it, but here we are in October and we are to go to Terneuzen for the return visit. On Sunday we head off to the Netherlands. Whilst looking forward to actually being there, I am concerned about leaving my husband with 2 small children for 6 days whilst I take care of 15 other children!
We are to take the ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge on Sunday evening. I think that is probably my biggest concern…12 hours on the North Sea in October, hmmmm! At least we have cabins – bed time at 10.30 pm. The preparations haven’t been without hitches, mainly that one girl dropped out last week, which was a shame and then yesterday, another girl fractured her foot so that means that she can’t come either. Oh well, at least it means there are less children to lose! It must be said, that with 15 of the most delightful children one could imagine (without them being your own), I don’t think that looking after them will be the most onerous task!
So, Sunday is D-day and I’ll be haveing a week off-line (as I got a BIG shock when I got my mobile phone bill after our summer holidays). I don’t know whether I’ll survive!

In my last post I said I was off to the Netherlands, so I’ll start there with this post.
We had a very busy 3 days visiting our partner school in Terneuzen. Things began with a flight to Amsterdam – there were, of course tears – and then a long car journey to the south of the country. Having hired a car, I thought I’d easily be able to drive on the “wrong side of the road”. How wrong I was! Fortunately Marije, a native of the Netherlands was accompanying me and was able to do the driving. It’s amazing what 8 years of marriage and motherhood seem to have done to me. Ten years ago, I’d have thought nothing about hopping into a foreign car and driving it but I simply panicked and the thought of a 6km tunnel turned me into a shivering wreck! I feel I’ve become somewhat deskilled – something I need to address very soon.
Once we had arrived we were whisked off to a meeting in Gent of all teachers involved in international projects whe the ZSC. A bit of a shock, I have to admit, as we hadn’t been warned about this. It was fascinating to see how keen schools in other European countries are to be able to work on collaborative projects with other schools in other countries. I think they found it very hard to understand that many schools in England are driven so much by results and league tables that they are unwilling to let pupils and teachers out of schools for any length of time because they worry that results and reputations will suffer. Anyway, we eventually got “home” and were asleep very quickly – not even a hint of alcohol all day (very unusual for me!).
Wednesday was a very busy day, leaving for Ypres (or Ieper as I will now call it) at 9 and returning to school at 9.30 in the evening. We went with some older pupils at the ZSC and Spanish pupils from Madrid who were working on a project there. We went to the “In Flanders Fields” museum which was very interesting. I particularly liked that pupils were allocated a personality from the was and they had tasks to fulfill, using that person’s experiences. It meant that the kids couldn’t wander aimlessly around the museum not really picking up on anything. We then headed off to Tyne Cot Cemetry which was an odd experience but very interesting nevertheless. What I found most amazing was finding the name of my grandad’s Uncle Tommy Bower of the Seaford Highlanders on the Tyne Cot Memorial and taking a picture of it. We next went to a trench at Hill 62 and the kids enjoyed seeing real trenches and getting very muddy in and out of the tunnels. After a very informative look at the trenches we went back into Ieper for tea, a tour of the town and Last Post at the Mennin Gate which was packed. All in all a very tiring day, physically and emotionally. It’s certainly something that will stick with me for a long time!
Finally on the Thursday we had a 2 hours in the ZSC with a school tour and meeting the staff before heading off back to Amsterdam. I managed to get the kids some slipper cloggs which they love before going to check in and board. There was a little bit of drama as we thought we might not get on the flight but in actual fact we were moved up to business class – nice!
A wonderful trip and I am very grateful that my Headteacher had enough faith in me to send me to plan our project and represent the school – first for me! The thing that most sticks out for me, however is that 10 years ago I would have taken all of the challenges presented to me – particularly the car thing – in my stride and now I found these things rather difficult. How can this have happened? I’ll have to build on this and find my ability to do most things without a problem…oh and did I mention that alcohol did not pass my lips for the whole time I was away!!! I was please to see the family again though )

As I sit here, exhausted, I finally have time to reflect upon one of the most hectic weeks of my teaching career – the first leg of our eTwinning project with a school in the Netherlands (doing a History project, but why I was involved is a whole other story!).
There were times when I thought it would never happen and there were definitely times when I hoped it wouldn’t happen!
Anyway, on Sunday all 20 pupils arrived, without a hitch. I had images of a poor Dutch child being left at school with no partner but everything worked OK, apart from my appalling pronunciation of the kids’ names. We had a great few days with trips to Beamish and Preston Park Museum, pupils working in the LRC on their projects and evening activities of bowling and a social evening at school where we were able to show parents a great slideshow of the activities.
The whole few days were fantastic, if not exhausting. These things are always such fun but so tiring at the same time. It was amazing the amount of support I got from colleagues throughout the school and the confidence it has given me in general. It was a bit of come-down to have to teach normal lessons on Thursday (we had a CPD Day today).
The tell tale signe of the success of the project were the tears at the end of the trip. Several of the pupils were hoping to stow away on the coach with their partners as they left.
For me, as a linguist, the most mortifying thing of the whole few days was that I couldn’t (and till can’t) speak a word of Dutch. I will certainly be rectifying that before I go over there in a few weeks time to plan the return trip P