We're back for the summer term!

What a fantastic response to our Greece blog!  Grannies, aunts, uncles,cousins and friends from all round the world were following the progress of our children in Year 6 as well as Year 5 as they experienced their Greek adventure.

We're back for the new summer term now, and it's back to business as usual for our blog, documenting the activities and goings on in Year 5 as the term progresses.  To all our new found followers - don't leave us!  It's been great having you follow our progress and just because we're back in school now doesn't mean things get any less exciting. 

At the moment in our Literacy lessons, we're looking at persuasive language and letter writing, in particular letters of complaint.  This BBC Bitesize activity is a good way to see how good you can be at complaining!

Can you leave me behind please?

 Apologies for the news blackout last night – in the excitement of our arrival back in Saudi came the reality of a downed internet server.  By now we’re sure parents have all the details of the children’s trip – most probably your ears were burning all the way back to Khobar!

 We had a slow start to the day – with an 11.00am pickup, there was no need to wake up until 8.30am.  There was not a single child awake before this time, they all slept on.  Ms. Naidoo too – she slept through her alarm but was fortunately woken by a friend calling from Saudi who thought she would need the extra time to pack her suitcase!


We had a smooth transfer to the airport.  On the way we discovered that Mohammed had left all the presents he’d bought in Greece in Tolon, and so one phone call later it was duly arranged that Mr. Gikas would visit in the summer to collect them (that’ll be a hard task for him, considering his favourite restaurant in Greece is a kilometer along the coast!).  Fortunately, the camera that Mohammed had left on the bus the day before was duly returned by the driver.

The sight of 30 children travelling around Greece was generally received with comments along the lines of “They’re so cute!”  If only they knew!  We were by far the youngest group of overseas tourists that we saw.  We were fussed over by Qatar Airways staff in the airport who quickly checked us in – although there were one or two passport discrepancies and they had to call back “the little girl Naidoo.”  (Actually, that was a recurring theme as the immigration officer in Dammam couldn’t understand why Ms. Naidoo remained at the desk seeing her group through – he thought she was one of the students). 

 Arrival in Doha was fairly prompt and gave the children their last opportunity to spend any remaining money they may have had – which, let’s face it, wasn’t much!  We should really have received a special commendation from the Greek government for the amount of cash we pumped into their economy!  We had a final bumpy flight from Doha to Dammam during which Mr. Suter was aggrieved to be beaten at the adult quiz game by Maya and Salman – they were guessing the answers, for goodness sake! – although Mr. Whitaker was delighted to beat Valerio at chess! 

 Upon landing, we managed to beat the main rush in the immigration hall, although Elizabeth did her best to delay us as her visa had to be scutinised by three different officers.  Eventually she was ‘released’, we gathered our bags, and emerged to the cheers and greetings of the assembled throng of mums and dads waiting for us.  

 What a fabulous week.  The children have been a credit to themselves and the school.  They’ve learned a lot, enjoyed new experiences and we hope had a lot of fun in the process, 



Laila enjoyed herself so much, on the bus to the airport in Athens she asked, “Can you leave me behind please?”

The strain shows!

Worn out

We thought we’d end this blog with the thoughts of the children themselves, taken from their journals:

Carina: “My favourite part was the Acropolis.  When you see it in the books it’s good, but when you’re there, it’s, like, wow!” 

Noura: “We went to the Parthenon after that.  It was very long and felt like it was called the Parthenon and on and on…”

Elizabeth: “Elvis Presslyiano did weird acts for us like a multicultural cat…” 

Maya: “In the museum we saw Greek vases and the most disgusting thing in the museum is the naked people.”

Matthew: “Today we got up to find a magnificent view of the sunrise from our balcony.”

Ami: “We climbed the Acropolis and it was amazing.”

Laila: “This is a week I will never forget.”

Khaled: “We had lunch – I had chicken and bread.  They were yummy.”

Valerio: “Luckily today I woke up before Mr. Suter and Mr. Whitaker could sing.”

Dylan: “I ate chicken that didn’t taste so good – I miss what my mum cooks.”

Salik: “The three islands were beautiful and huge.”

Lojain: “Breakfast was not the same because we were in Tolon.  It was unexpectantly better.”

Faisal: “We went for dinner and had beef, rice and a Greek food.  I don’t know what it was called.”

Noura: “We then went to see some statues that are disgusting because most of them are naked.  As Anna, our tour guide had said, all men statues are naked.”

Jacob: “On the second island we went to the clock tower.  It was hard work.”

Lynn: “When we got to the museum and had a look around it we got to understand the old culture of Greece.”

Mohammed: “Today was such fun because I took a lemon from a lemon tree.”

Ridah: “I didn’t like walking, and my legs were hurting so much, even though I was wearing trainers.”

Noura: “We went to the beach and the water was freezing.  We were bullied by Mr. Suter and Mr. Whitaker.  We got our revenge later on.  We buried Mr. Whitaker and put boobs on him and made him a mermaid.”

Ahmed: “Today we woke up at 7.00am.  Mr. Suter had to come in and wake us up.  How does he open our door without the key?”

Kush: “We saw a cat on Ayra’s lap and we scared it away – it just vanished into thin air.”

Ayra: “I was sitting down and a cat came and sat next to me and then she climbed into my lap and Ms. Naidoo said that I put her in my lap.  I said I didn’t, because I didn’t.  And I did sanitise my hands after so bye!”

Daniel: “At the museum we were excited and it felt amazing.  There was glass and under it there was old things…”

Simon: “We went to the museum and then the Acropolis.  It was a long way up.”

Aboudi: “My favourite part was the cruise.  I liked the islands but I liked being outside in the wind best.”

Omar: “Then we arrived at the first island to make shopping.  For every island, we shopped!”

Salman: “The best bit (at the beach) was when we covered Mr. Whitaker with sand and he couldn’t move a muscle.  But finally he roared and got up.”

Bagus: “Since I can’t play on my PSP because there’s no battery I have to watch the view.”

Tamara: “We visited three islands – very nice – but the first one used their legs as a living.  But I also don’t think they know what cars are.”

Mariana: “I got ready to go on the cruise to three islands but I got sea sick on the cruise!”

Zaid: “We saw loads of statues from the past.”

Ruben: “We made a friend called Anna, which I like because she gave us very good information.”

Noura: “I left my clothes on the bed before and now they’re under the pillow.  The room cleaners are like tooth fairies.  I leave nothing under my pillow and they give me my clothes.”

The end of the road/dawn of yawns

After yesterday’s adventures, an early start this morning was again on the cards as we had to pack up and leave the seaside.  At 6.30am this morning there was the most amazing sunrise over the adjacent hills, but there were very few students to see it.  After breakfast, we packed up – despite every room claiming that they had absolutely checked and there was nothing left behind, we managed to collect a vast array of things left behind.  Mr. Gikas was particularly pleased to be reunited with his belongings too!

Wow! Our arrival at Epidaurus

Our first journey this morning took us to the theatre at Epidaurus.  There was a collective “Eugh!” as Ahmed ran off the bus to puke in the bushes (in fairness it was a winding road) followed by a collective “Wow” as we rounded the corner and saw the auditorium for the first time.  It’s some kind of holiday for Greek students at the moment and so all of the attractions today were full of noisy students – not ours! – but we still had time to get four of our group up on stage to sing “Under the Sea” to general acclaim.  Sadly, Noura was too shy initially to repeat her success with “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from the recent Junior production, and by the time she had drummed up the courage the moment had passed as the stage was taken over by another group.   

A modern tragedy - BISAK singers

From Epidaurus we continued to Mycenae, first of all to the Beehive Tomb (Atreus’ Treasury for the classicists).  Jacob and Valerio managed to incur the wrath of an Italian tourist by scraping their feet along the ground, churning up clouds of dust  - fortunately they didn’t understand a single word of the tirade he directed against them!  From there we headed up to the citadel of Mycenae, entering through the famous Lion’s Gate.  When asked what animals we thought were depicted there, Ruben very astutely volunteered “Elephants” (Have a look at the picture and you’ll see why we laughed!). 

What no Whitaker?

The weather today has been fantastic – sun cream was definitely needed – and by the end of the tour of Mycenae stomachs were clearly rumbling, so we proceeded to a modern temple of food, where we ate baked lamb, salad and ice cream.  Mr. Whitaker rolled out of the restaurant, having gone round scavenging food from the children’s plates.  Mr. Gikas did his best to comply with various requests for plate smashing entertainment by dropping one which rendered the whole restaurant silent – both Simon and Daniel went one better by actually dropping and smashing glasses.

Our theatre team

Suitably replete, we had a quick stop at a local pottery making factory where we saw a pottery demonstration – Kush was pulled up to help show how the Cup of Justice worked, and he was obviously so good that the shop nearly ran out of them!  We had a final stop at Corinth to see just how far down it was from the bridge to the canal – a mere 80m.  Sadly the bungee jumping place adjacent to the bridge was closed and so we didn’t get a chance to send Ms. Naidoo over the edge (although she might argue that’s exactly what the three male teachers with her have been doing all week!).  A final ice cream stop, and then back to Athens where we were reunited with a variety of clothing and other items that’d we’d left two days prior (Mr. Gikas was grateful to be brought together again with the flip flops he’d left behind - they were the first items out of the bag!).   

Sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus

This evening has been spent with a “Greek Week Quiz” – children were split into teams and had to answer a variety of questions with letters of the alphabet as the first letter of the answer.  Mr. Whitaker compered the evening, but he did surpass himself earlier in the evening when the teachers were setting the questions.  “What’s a type of column beginning with the letter I?” Mr.Whitaker: “Doric?”  Some of the children’s answers were slightly spurious, in particular for L where the answer should have been ‘locust’ – we had ‘l-grasshopper’, a ‘lotus’, and a ‘limping grasshopper.’  When asked to use an adjective beginning with ‘v’ to describe their week, we had the following:  ‘vonderful’, ‘valuable time,’ ‘varied,’ ‘very awesome,’ and ‘vigorously amazing.’

Beehive tomb at Mycenae

So that’s it. We sang happy birthday to Daniel in anticipation of his birthday on Monday, and now the children are all in bed, staff are slowly chilling and we’re all looking forward to a bit of a lie-in tomorrow morning (Valerio asked why we were getting a lion). We fly from Athens at 2.00pm, and despite the fun we’ve had we’ve 30 children looking forward to a hug from Mum and Dad tomorrow evening. See you back in Saudi!

The Lion's Gate, Mycenae

Kush demonstrates Pythagorus' Cup of Justice

Bridge over the Corinth Canal

It's a long way down!  Who's foot?



Sunrise in Tolon - not many saw this!



Statues, souvlaki and swimming

This morning was a great achievement as we managed to get all the children out of the hotel and on to their bus by our scheduled departure time, and without actually leaving anything behind! We had a short bus ride to the National Archaeological Museum, where our guide Anna took us on a tour of the exhibits. Our conservative estimate of the number of pictures taken by our students is 1000, although judging by the length of time it took to compose most of them we suspect the quality of about 990 of them won’t be great! Sensibly judging the attention span of our children to be not particularly high, Anna raced us through in such a way as to keep attention while focusing on the main pieces in the museum.

Mr. Whitaker never looks his best in the morning

 From there we have an hour’s journey to Corinth, to an al fresco lunch beside the Corinth canal. At the entrance there is a bridge that sinks to allow ships to pass, and when it resurfaces it is usually covered with small wriggling fish. After lunch a run in the adjacent park, and then on to Naphlio.

Ms. Naidoo has trouble getting her new suitcase on the bus

 Our visit here has combined with some sort of holiday for Greek students, and there are plenty of them around, loud and noisy. Naphlio itself is a charming town, with three fortified citadels around the place, and narrow streets to allow a bit of browsing – because after all, these children like to shop! We split into our four groups and all went off in different directions to explore. The quite clearly communicated plan had been to meet back in the main square 15 minutes before our bus was due to leave, to allow us time to walk back to it, but Mr. Gikas decided he would head directly back to the bus and so left the other three groups waiting for him in the square. When we eventually decided that was what he had done, he met us on the way to the bus and had the cheek to accuse us of being late!

BISAK - bottom of the class

 At our parents’ evening prior to the trip we had mentioned about including a swim kit in the packing list, so one of the most regularly repeated questions this week has been “Can we go swimming today?” Well, within 20 minutes or so of arriving in Tolon 30 of our group of 34 were in the water. Ms. Naidoo pleaded the fifth and took Khaled for a long walk along the beach, and Mr. Gikas claimed ‘lifeguard duties’ – Ruben enjoyed his role as clean foot enforcer on our return to the hotel but didn’t fancy a swim himself. To say that the water was fresh would be a slight understatement – most emerged looking slightly pink! The children had great fun after swimming burying Mr. Whitaker in the sand, although Omar didn’t quite understand the concept of not burying Mr. Whitaker’s head at the same.

Naphlio

 Suitably invigorated, tonight’s dinner was quickly reduced to a series of empty plates and contented stomachs. Valerio surpassed himself by asking whether the bottles of water that had been placed on the table with glasses for our dinner were actually drinkable, much to the amusement of the waiter. With the children in good mood we headed off for a walk along the local prom. As a night cap we stopped for a hot chocolate, although there was universal dismay at the uninvited guest who joined us at our tables – a large locust. OK, cue screaming and mass panic as the children scrambled to get away from him. Mr. Whitaker stepped up to the plate and caught him in Mr. Suter’s hat.

Brrrrr...

 What a brilliant day! Sadly, we’ve only one more and then it’s back to Saudi and school on Monday. But we won’t talk of that, when we’re off to Epidaurus and Mycenae tomorrow. Let’s hope Mr. Suter has a better song to sing this year!

Not sure what to say here really!

Mr. Whitaker is buried

The view from the bedroom

Donkeys, sick bags and shopping...

Ready for the off

One thing that we’ve been absolutely amazed by since we’ve been here is the interest that there has been in our blog. In the time that we’ve left Saudi, we’ve received nearly 1000 views from all over the world. We can vouch for that by the message left by Elizabeth’s Granny in Australia, who is following our exploits here in Greece. Elizabeth herself was surprised by Granny’s contribution: “I didn’t know she was that clever.” Granny, if you’ve any reprimand that you’d like us to implement on your behalf to your Granddaughter, please let us know and we’ll happily comply! It is good because in this hotel we do have computers connected to the internet that the children can check messages left for them on the blog, so it’s helping them keep in touch with home. We’re amazed by parents who claim that they didn’t realise just how noisy their children are – now come on, mums and dads, how could you miss that?!

Ms. Naidoo feeling the strain

We had an early start this morning, so Mr. Suter’s singing had to be particularly loud. For Mr. Whitaker’s benefit also as he inadvertently switched his alarm off instead of to snooze when it went off this morning. A tentative weather check first thing promised blue skies, but there was a hint of a breeze that had staff reaching for the sick bags in preparation for a rough journey. As we were up so early some of the children were a little confused by the fact that it was still dark – there were at least three queries of whether we were having dinner for breakfast. A sign, we suppose, of how most of them rarely travel outside the Middle East and experience dark early mornings.

Aboudi, Khaled and Salik enjoy the breeze

Today was our day for island hopping. Last year we cruised on the Greek national day, which meant that the boat was jammed to the rafters but this year there were a mere 210 passengers onboard, so we had plenty of room to spread out. Of course most immediately opted for the top outside deck, but the staff up there were fairly wary of us and seemed to remember something about an incident last year involving a heavily twisted ankle… Despite this, the children still had plenty of interaction with the staff and chatting to one of them Mr. Whitaker was surprised to learn that we had a Filipino child with us that this particular staff member said he’d had a long chat with. Enquiring of his name, he was told “Mohammed.” We were all as much surprised by Mohammed’s multi-lingual skills as this member of staff obviously was. For those who don’t know Mohammed, he’s one of our two Saudi nationals on this trip, so we’d all love to know how that conversation went!

Refreshments, Daniel style

The first leg of the journey was our longest – two hours to reach the island of Hydra. We had a resident organist on board, a case of ‘Zorba plays elevator music,’ and one or two of our party had a tentative step out on the dance floor. A few more sunk into their chairs, as the quite heavy roll we experienced on the boat caused a few colour changes among children and staff. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘being green around the gills,’ but never would have thought that someone could actually have a green tinge. In Ms. Naidoo’s defence, she does suffer terrible with sea sickness and did well to keep a smile on her face for most of the day.

Hydra: everybody say, "Big Red Case!"

Sickbags intact and unused, we landed on Hydra and with no Mrs. Williams on board actually had a chance to visit some of the fortified ‘modern’ defences on the island rather than heading straight for the shops. Lojain in particular would take a cursory glance around wherever we were and then her next question would be, “Can we go to the shops now?” Hydra itself is quite unique as there is little motorised traffic and instead a pace of donkeys were tied up harbourside, being loaded up with a variety of materials from cement bags, planks of wood and even a double bed base. One local went past riding one while using his mobile, which prompted a few queries as to whether he should be using a mobile while in charge of a vehicle!

The monkey tree...

Shops depleted, next stop was the island of Poros, where Mr. Gikas and Mr. Suter were determined to see a little more of the island itself than they were allowed last year. Thus upon disembarkation, we avoided the shops and went for a convoluted stroll through the hills to the clock tower overlooking the harbour. Some of the children were a little surprised to see oranges and lemons growing above their heads as we walked up the narrow laneways, but Mohammed and Faisal plucked one to eat fresh as we strolled along – Faisal later refused to buy another in the shop to eat as he felt it wouldn’t be fresh enough. And then, of course, we did visit a shop or two…

Children?  What children?

Lunch was eaten on the way to Aegina – fortunately the crew delayed pulling away from the harbourside as we didn’t really fancy trying to hold on to our plates as we were eating! The highlight of the day for many was the ice cream that we had straight away after coming off the boat, but then we had a pleasant walk along the sea front which culminated in the request from most to return to the boat rather than continue shopping!

Fast-paced island life

Having managed to avoid the sick bags all day, despite some close calls, there was a miraculous recovery for the final leg home as we were entertained by the Greek Elvis Presley and his cabaret act – and when his act finished, our children took over the entertainment for the rest of the passengers as, encouraged by Mr. “Twinkle Feet” Whitaker, they danced all the way back to port.

Aegina

A return to the hotel, another three course dinner, and now bags are packed ready for our transfer down to the coast tomorrow. As we type this, the children are all asleep upstairs – despite the loud cheering from another group of students from the UK in the hotel. Of course, our staff wouldn’t allow our children to behave like that, but then that’s a whole other story….

Lunch - again!

Elvis Presleyopoulos entertains the crowd

What’s that up there?

We had a relatively late start this morning – the children weren’t due out of bed until 7.15am. For the difficulty we had in rousing some of them (Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Suter singing “Morning has broken” would surely usually rouse the dead!) you’d have thought we’d woken them up in the middle of the night again. We had a grand spread for breakfast, with plenty of choice, and then we planned to board the bus and depart by 8.45am. That was, until Aboudi decided it would a good idea to head butt his bedside locker! With a hotline to Nurse Eileen and Mr. Suter’s first aid skills, he was soon put right and thus we set off, slightly later than planned.

So who are the Falcons?

We had a brief tour of central Athens on the bus, and then we stopped at the Panathinaikan Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1886. We arrived there just as another 10 coaches did – seemingly a cruise ship had arrived in port this morning. We felt very proud in our white tour hats, compared to all those passengers who had a mere sticker with a number on it – very personalised, we don’t think!

On your marks...

From there it was a short stroll to the new Acropolis Museum. As we sauntered along the pedestrianised lane, the Acropolis, in all its glory, appeared on high to our left, seemingly nestled in amongst the clouds. Tamara pointed up. We paused, waiting for the profound expression of amazement that was surely going to spout forth from her. “Mr. Whitaker,” she asked, “what’s that up there?” At this point both Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Suter would like it to be known that Mrs. Williams taught Tamara her Year 5 Ancient Greek history course!

What's that up there?

The museum itself was a stunning collection of frecoes and statues from the Acropolis and Parthenon. Our tour guide, Anna, took us initially to a series of models of the Acropolis to show us its development through the ages. She answered a series of questions, impressed by the thirst for knowledge and indeed the level of erudition the children displayed. That was, until Daniel asked whether the fortified wall added to the base of the site in around 300BC was in fact the Great Wall of China. Despite the fantastic collection of artifacts on show, by far and away the most popular feature were the glass floors throughout the three storeys. As Jacob notes, “…at the museum it was fun and a bit scary because the glass floor was see through and when we were at the top I could see my fate if the glass broke.”

And behind us is an ancient Greek crane...

We had to have an appointment for our tour of the museum, as it does get extremely busy in there. In fact, at times we had to dodge around other groups as we toured around. What we as teachers would like to add here is that in comparison to other groups that were there, particularly children our age, our group was and has been throughout extremely well behaved.

What, no cranes?

Climbing the Acropolis this year was somewhat easier having no one to carry to the top as we had to last year. Perhaps Elizabeth can explain it best: “After visiting the museum we walked up to the top of the Acropolis. The walk there was REALLY tiring! Once we got there it was so good. The views were breathtaking.” It was a little windy at the top so jumpers soon surfaced, but that meant that the clouds covered the distant bay and the children didn’t have to listen to Mr. Suter droning on about the fear of imaging the Persian fleet amassed out in the distanc……………

Foooooooooood...

As you can imagine on a trip like this, photo opportunities are a regular feature: no “Cheese” here, every photo is preceded by a loud cry of “Big red case!” However, after our museum tour and Acropolis visit, the last few photos were greeted with a cry of “Hungry!” Point taken, we descended through the Agora for a souvlaki feast in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the Plaka. Mohammed, when asked for the highlight of the day, said “the food” and the collection of clean plates attested to this. Lojain was slightly perturbed by the pigeon that perched above her head – claims of bird poop on you being lucky would not reassure her to stay in her seat!

After lunch we embarked on a preliminary shopping assault – while shopkeepers were delighted to welcome 30 eager to spend youngsters in their premises, they were slightly wary of their backpacks and the possible damage they could do. Which Salman did his best prove, sending a row of ceramics bouncing – luckily – on the floor! Wallets emptied, we route marched back to the bus, for possibly the highlight of the day for many – an ice cream! (although Simon managed to drop his for a stray dog to eat). A short coach trip home, another three course meal (pasta starter, baked chicken with Greek style potatoes and Greek salad and… ice cream!) and, due to our early start tomorrow for our cruise, an early night for the children with lights out by 9.00pm – an overseas trip record? Tomorrow is our cruise of the Saronic Gulf, visiting the islands of Aegina, Poros and Hydra. Weather forecast is supposedly quite blustery, so it could be an interesting voyage. Watch this space!

Relaxing after a hard day's sightseeing...

One thing that has truly delighted us here is the number of hits our blog has received, and the interaction between children here and back at school, and also parents.  We do have to issue an apology to Ms. Naidoo - apparently her suitcase has been the talk of BISAK over the last couple of days.  We do think that she has been hard done by and that really it wasn't as big as we made out.  Ms. Naidoo - our sincerest apologies.

Little red case

Finally, for all our blog watchers back home, a request.  Can you come up with a caption for Mr. Gikas and Mr. Suter's antics here?  Please let us know by posting a comment at the bottom of the page.

Your caption here