On Friday, the 26th of November, was a special day for us as an UNESCO school because we welcomed some guests from the 94. Mittelschule Leipzig, also an UNESCO school, in our halls. First of all the students took part in the non-European languages, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese and although they didn’t understand anything, they enjoyed the new experience really a lot.

After the introduction of our school day via the languages we had an appointment with our headmaster, Mr. Schmidt. He talked a little bit about the history of our school but also about our offers in the fields of the all-day-concept. The session was interesting for the students from Leipzig and also for their teachers because they got a deep insight in our school and the timetable of our students. It was very fascinating for the students to imagine learning four languages together.

After the meeting with Mr. Schmidt it was time for lunch and for coming into first contacts with our UNESCO students group. Before we went to the canteen we had a small tour around the school areal and the boarding school. We could also show them some of the rooms in one of the new boarding schools. And then it was time for getting to know each other.

First of all the contact was quite reserved and it took a little bit time to get into a conversation. Just some few minutes later all the restraint was forgotten and we got to know the Mittelschule a lite bit more because the students presented their projects and actions. We could get some really nice ideas and hopefully we can realize them in our school or together with the 94. Mittelschule.

One real great project that impressed me lot was the project of the “pencil”. The school buys pencils with the print education for everyone and the school sells these pencils to new students or teachers or other interested visitors. One part of the money is to get the expenses and the other part is for the school purposes such as donations. We suggested translating the print in all languages taught in our school to get an international pencil.

The lunch break passed by very quickly and our young students had to leave to go to their lessons. The students of the eights and ninths class came together to exchange their ideas of an joint project for the rest of the school year or the new school year, preparing the upcoming international project day about food and all related topics. The students worked hard but the time almost flew away and so it was hard to find an end, but we have some first ideas and suggestions for a joint project:

• Creating a cooking book with recipes in various languages
• Asking students from Gambia about their typical food (in Gambia is a partner school of the 94. Mittelschule) – interviews and questionnaires and publishing it in the school magazines
• Special country and recipes and asking the cooking firms of both schools to cook the meals
• Theatre (topic food: Hinterm Tellerrand geht’s weiter) and donating the entrance fees

Other ideas for common projects were:

• radio plays dealing with topics of UNESCO
• concerts with donations
• theatre

It was a hard and long but very exciting and beautiful day and I hope that it was the opening of an interesting cooperation in which we will achieve some great things and succeed in many projects.

I am really happy that I got to know one of the UNESCO teachers, Mrs Marion Richter, from the 94. Mittelschule during our workshop in Weimar.