Scottish Catholic Observer

Five pupils from Our Lady’s High School were part of a UK delegation to China this summer.

The Cumbernauld school is the Confucius Hub for North Lanarkshire and several of its senior pupils joined teacher Margaret O’Boyle and pupils and teachers from other hubs across the UK for the trip.

Our Lady’s High School is one of 10 Confucius Classroom hubs across Scotland, covering 15 local authorities. The hubs offer a central learning point for schools and communities about Chinese language and culture.

Beijing

Sixth-year pupils Gareth Davies, Catherine Exposito, Rachel Jones, Kieran McLaren and Caitlin Murphy were based in Beijing Training College of Foreign Studies University where they took part in Mandarin classes, participated in Tai Chi, paper cutting, making Chinese masks, calligraphy and Chinese painting classes.

As well as tasting some of the local cuisine and spending time with their Chinese counterparts during the trip organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland and the Han Ban, the cultural section of the Chinese Government, the delegation took in the sights, including the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

The pupils also enjoyed a warm reception from the locals and the opportunity to put some Mandarin phrases in to practice.

Pass on experience

They hope to pass on what they learned to pupils back home, where Mandarin lessons began after the summer holidays.

“The language is very difficult to learn but we are hoping to put it to good use. With the growing size of China Mandarin is becoming very important,” the pupils explained.

The three weeks were extremely informative but were over too quickly for the pupils. “It would be good to go back and see some other parts of China, possibly outside the city,” pupil Catherine Exposito said. “I think it would be very interesting to see life in the Chinese countryside.”

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