Three days in Helston and making progress in Romanian

At Parc Eglos Primary School, Helston, Cornwall, again today (12/1/22) for the third day running to talk to students about migration and teach a few phrases of Romanian. The idea? So that the children could welcome any newcomers without English to their school. It might have seemed a bit ambitious to teach Romanian in 20 minutes but it worked!Particularly today with the older students in Years 5 and 6.

Not only did we manage to master simple phrases like ‘Hello’, Goodbye’ and ‘How are you?’.

We also moved on to ‘Thank you’ (a pretty long word in Romanian), ‘Please’ and – very impressively – ‘How are you feeling?’

The boy in Year 6 who suggested this last question really put himself in the shoes of a newcomer to the school without any English. Very impressive.

We had some good feedback, too,  from the lovely dance teacher who visits the school every week. She also – independently – runs ballet classes in Helston and on Monday evening (after our first visit to the school) some of her young students greeted her with a little bit of Romanian – ‘Hello!’

What a good start.

This is part of our work on migration to break down prejudice against the people from overseas who play a vital role in the Cornish – and British – economy. It’s called I PACKED THIS MYSELF and is funded by Cornwall Council via Inclusion Cornwall.