Camera, Lights, Connection!

Did you know that Beijing is 8,918 kilometres away from Sydney? Our Year 3 Learning Community does! As part of their Social Studies unit called “Get Connected”, our Year 3 students created a remarkable video for students their same age at a school in Australia. “This unit of study builds on from our previous unit of study called ‘Be the best Me’ where we focused on ourselves, to now thinking about how we interact with other people and places. Having the link to the school in Australia gave us a chance to get in touch with other students and put it in relation to how we live and learn,” explains Mr Honey, Year 3 Learning Community teacher. Prior to the project, the school in Sydney presented some questions to the Year 3 students about our school and our students’ daily life in Beijing. Our Year 3s chose which of the questions they would like to answer, based on the questions that were allocated to each homeroom. The script for the video was written collaboratively in each group after independent research. The Year 3 ‘reporters’ explained with great pathos and dedication our school transportation, take us on a school tour, and introduced our school uniform. Sports, residential buildings, tourist sights, and Chinese food were also featured topics within their informative and charming 20-minute video. To round it off with a personal note, some students provided family portraits, even including their pets. According to the teachers, a wonderful challenge was presented to the students in that they needed to produce the video in English only as their audience did not know Chinese. This was a valuable learning experience for many of our Chinese first-language speakers. The video itself is a fantastic example of how cross-curricular teaching is implemented at YCIS Beijing containing elements of English, History, Geography, Science, Drama, and lots of ICT.

“The project was loved by the students,” states Mr Honey. “They rose to a new challenge and enjoyed something new. They liked interacting with different people and were able to find out about differences and similarities. As international students, it is important that they understand how things work in other places as well as be able to develop their flexibility in changing situations. In addition to that, the project also helped to improve their research and presentation skills.” The Year 3 Learning Community is hoping to be able to maintain the link with the school in Sydney during their ‘Traditions’ unit of study, as they learn about different customs from around the world and make comparisons between them. “It will be nice to learn how the festive season is celebrated in Australia. We have already discussed a possible cross-continent Zoom Christmas party. We really hope it can happen,” says Mr Honey.

8,918 kilometres is still a huge distance from Beijing, but it feels much closer through having been able to ‘Get Connected’.