The trip to Australia: Sandringham Primary School and Chinese evening

Wednesday

05.08.2015

Today we woke up early, 7.20 AM, because we wanted to go to the gym in the morning to do some exercise. So we ate breakfast and headed there.

When we came home again, we had a quick shower and when Sam came she took us to...

...Sandringham Primary School (Magnus and Freya's school). Because today we spent some hours there to find out what things are alike to Swedish schools and what differences there are.

First Sam helped us to "check in" and then she helped us to find our way to Magnus' classroom. First lesson was reading. The topic was "The human body" and today they learned about the eye.

Then they had math. They learned about division and did some calculations. We did the calculations too.

Then it was time for lunch. We had packed sandwiches that we ate while the teacher, Mrs Maria Russel, read a book for the class. After that it was lunchbreak. First we wandered around talking and watching the children play. Then four 10-year-old children came and "attacked" us and asked us thousand of questions. For example, "Why are you here?", "Where are you from?", "Why do you have white jackets?", "Where did you buy those jackets?" and one of them loved chicken apparently. They were entertaining, but fortunately Mrs Russel came and rescued us after a while. She told us to go and have a hot drink in the staff room and on our way there we met Sam (she had been helping in Freya's class when they were in the swimming hall) who showed us there.

When the break was over we went back to the classroom and sat in the back while all year six classes listened to a teacher who told them about a computer program.

In the end of the school day the children wrote down things in some kind of diaries.

Here are some facts about Australian schools:

In Australia the students...

...can choose if they want to go to a private or a public school (the private schools are more expensive).

...have to bring their lunches with them from home.

...wear school uniforms.

...name their teachers by surname, ex. Mrs Russel.

...begin the school-year in the end of January.

We had to have yellow stickers on our shirts to show people that we were visitors. It was interesting to spend the day in their school and see how they learn.

After school we went home and had some quiet time while Sam and Freya were at Freya's gymnastics and Magnus and Charlotte made some more gluten free bread.