Lycée Carnot fron Dijon France connected with Shirley Boys through the Shared Histories Project and our French Language class

What a great time we had at Shirley Boys High School as our project partners from Lycée Carnot in Dijon (FR) visited in April.

Shirley Boys and the Lycée Carnot have been working together exploring the shared history of rwo countries in the context of WW1.

The Shared Histories project has provided a superb opportunity and a great meaningful starting point. This incredible project has led our students beyond the past and has opened up many opportunities to share our countries cultures and forge new and meaningful friendships. Now it is up to  our schools and our students to make the most of this experience in the future.

Both Schools have invested a lot of time and effort into this project. The connection was made almost three years ago. Shirley visited France last year and presented Lycée Carnot with some Pou especially commissioned for the project. 

It was with excitement we received a request for Lycée Carnot to visit us. The group's focus was based around Culture and History. They wish to learn about our Culture and took the opportunity to visit Te Papa and the national War Museum in Wellington. The students  took part in a powhiri at Willowbank, learnt the poi and the Rakau, a Maori stick game. In Christchurch the students laid poppies at our War Memorial.

Class activities provided a rich source of exchange. Frank Baudot spent time teaching our classes about Charles de Gaulle.  We all took the opportunity to further our language skills with a range of interactive activities. The students made presentations to our senior Social Science Classes. 

We also visited together our Christchurch surrounding areas, going up the gondola on the Cashmere Hills and went rock climbing at Clip'n Climb. This was a real crowd pleaser. The Antarctic Centre was fun. 

Our hosts enjoyed having the students and their willingness to try and communicate and give everything a go was very much noted and appreciated. Hosts took their students out and about and two lucky girls even got meet Kieran Read the captain of the All Blacks.

Here are some images that capture what we achieved together, which definitely achieved what we set out to do: strengthen further our relationship across continent with remembrance at its heart.

See how this this collaborative project came together

You can also view Lycée Carnot students' take on their trip to New Zealand on their blog