East Ayrshire Saxony link

A group of 12 teachers from Saxony has spent the last few days visiting schools in East Ayrshire. They are all of Sorbian origin. This is an ethnic Slavonic minority group  in the area of Upper Lusatia (Oberlausitz) around the town of Bautzen. All of them teach in Sorbian, in Sorbian schools. It is a Slavonic language with similarities to Czech and Polish. They were particularly interested in the Gaelic Medium unit in Onthank Primary and Grange Academy. They also visited Languages and Maths departments in Kilmarnock Academy and Cumnock Academy, Dalrymple Primary School, Park School and Flowerbank Nursery.

This morning media crews from Cumnock and Grange interviewed them in German about their experiences this week.

All of them have been impressed with the friendliness of everyone, by the relaxed atmosphere in schools, by the use of positive reinforcement, by the willingness of teachers to have them pop into their classrooms – the open door policy, by the use of ICT and the resources in general in schools.

They also expressed surprise at the sunny weather they have had up till today, by the greenness, the hills, the fields with livestock – all of which is quite different to them.

This entry was posted on March 29, 2007 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.