Harpenden students explore Chinese culture during visit

Students at a school which has forged a special link with China over the years have just returned from a cultural visit to the country.

At the end of term, a party from St George’s School, Harpenden, along with two teachers, took part in a trip which involved the students learning Mandarin, Chinese culture and visiting some of its most impressive historical sites.

It began with a visit to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden city and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, where the group learnt about the history of China from the past to the present and particularly the impact of the Ming dynasty.

They then travelled by high speed bullet train to Jinan, the host city, several hundred miles away from Beijing, where they stayed at Shandong University and engaged with a series of Mandarin lessons and cultural activities such as calligraphy, tai chi and Chinese traditional music.

As well as trying lots of traditional cuisine, they visited a Chinese village and went to Qufu, the home of Confucius.

Before returning to Harpenden the group went back to Beijing and walked along part of the Great Wall of China.

Mr Jeremy Hollingsworth, who led the visit, said: “ This was an amazing trip and a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to learn more about China, which will be such an important country in their lifetime. I have to say how impressed I was by the way in which the group threw themselves in to everything on offer, engaged fully with the programmes and were great ambassadors for both the school and our country.

“Trips are always a lot of responsibility for staff taking them, but we could not have asked for a better group of pupils.”

St George’s has always had strong links with China and its pioneering work with the country resulted in it being granted Confucious status by former Education Secretary Michael Gove in a ceremony in London in 2011.

Students made a blog while on the current trip to China which can be found here.