One of the early twinning events with Denton.

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Voici un article apparu dans le journal de l’école St, John Fisher, dont le directeur de l’époque, Bob Ganley, avait reçu des enfants de Montigny encadrés par Michèle Schaffer.

Titre du journal de l’École

FRIENDLY WELCOME FOR FRENCH PUPILS TO SAINT JOHN FISHER’S

When Denton Town Twinning Association decided to start exchange visits between French and English children. the civic dignitaries got together to decide how to start the process of pupil exchange

They prepared a calendar with several dates already determined for 1995-1996.A French teacher of English, Mme. Schaffer, .brought a group of 25 French school children over at the end of April .The children, aged 9-13, were staying at the YHA in Manchester.

Mrs Sallmon and Mme Schaffer / Photographs by D. Townson

It was decided that the children would spend a morning at an English school and since most of the children were catholic they decided that they would go to a catholic school. Our school was chosen partly for that reason and partly because one of the organizers, Mrs. Taylor works at St.Thomas More and the Year 6 children are going there in September. Linden Road also had some children out of the group.

To prepare the children for the visit, Mrs.Salmon, the year 3 teacher, started to teach them some basic conversational French. When the day came we were all excited but still very nervous. The French children arrived at 9:30 and we introduced ourselves and we gave the French pupils a questionnaire to answer. The questionnaire was mainly about where they had been around the North West. The places they enjoyed most were Blackpool and Hyde Leisure Centre.                                                                             

Mme. Schaffer brought her guitar which she took out and we sang a song with the French pupils. It was called.MA ROCHELLE which was about a sailor who was homesick

Mme Schaffer leads the singsong

At breaktime we all showed the French children to the library to get drinks and biscuits. When we got our drinks we just stood about talking in our own languages to our own friends.

After break it was our P.E. lesson: We had two separate games. football for the boys and basketball for the girls. It was good to play with the French girls. The‘ were good at basketball. At lunchtime the French pupils all had their own packed lunches. We took each French pupil to the lunch table an had a last chat. Afterwards Mr..Townson took some photos and we said au revoir to the pupils until the evening time when they returned to Houghton Green for tea at some of our houses.

Zone de Texte: It was nerveracking for some at first because they didn't know what to do or how to talk to the children. In the end it all worked out well. The French pupils brought gifts for their hosts to say thank you.
Mme Schaffer, Mr. Ganley, Mrs Salmon and all the pupils get ready to say goodbye « AU REVOIR MON AMI »

L’article se termine avec les remerciements chaleureuses de Mrs Angela Taylor à Mr. Bob Ganley :

Angela Taylor, professeur de Français au collège St. John Fisher