International Boarders' Evening
We currently have fifty five boarders living with us on-site at Kingswood spread across all of the houses and year groups. In many respects we have been incredibly lucky to have our own little community bubble where we can see one another face to face, albeit socially distanced. The House staff Team and Mr Davies (Director of Co-Curricular) have done a great job in providing lots of things for the boarders to do when not in lessons and this weekend was no exception.
On Friday evening, we held our annual International Boarders’ Evening which gave an online audience of boarders and staff the opportunity to hear all about a handful of the many different backgrounds that our overseas boarders come from. We heard all about Nepal from some of our Westwood boarders who put together an informative and entertaining presentation that contained amongst other things, the telling on a Nepalese myth and also a chance to hear the national anthem of Nepal. We then heard from Kann and Cartoon on behalf of Thailand who told us all about how their home country was dealing with the pandemic, but also some of the positive effects that lockdowns are having on the environment in Thailand due to the much lower levels of pollution being created by humans. Cartoon took us on mini tour of some of the beauty spots in Thailand that certainly made many of us pine once more for the opportunity to travel.
A group of the boarders from Middle and Hall, who have parents that work for Her Majesty’s Forces, then presented to us a whistle-stop tour of the many different places they had lived such as the USA, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Cyprus and Brunei. The reoccurring theme of this part of the presentation seemed to be the different types of food each country was known for!
In years 12 and 13, we currently have six students from Japan who are studying with us as part of the very prestigious Tazaki Foundation Scholarship programme. Haru, Takuto, Hiroki, Shinnosuke, Mayu and Saho delivered a fascinating presentation about Japan that told us about education, food and culture including Mayu’s love on Manga. Takuto talked about the devastation caused by the Tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster both in 2011 and Saho taught us all about the word “oshi” that seems to be a multi-purpose positive word that Mrs Mainwaring and the girls from Fonthill declared they would be using from now on to describe all things good!
The evening was rounded off by Dasha from Summerhill who told us all about Russia and came up with the understatement of the evening when she showed a slide reporting the weather in her home town as -42 degrees before saying, “It can get quite cold”. Ironically, this was two days before Bath ground to a halt following about four inches of snow!
On Saturday night, Miss Paver and Mr Chua hosted an Indian Cuisine evening in Hall House for our onsite Sixth Form boarders. Following the all clear from their weekly lateral flow tests, our twenty three Sixth Form boarders descended on Hall House at 6.30 in the evening for a culinary delight. The Catering Department provided the delicious poppadums, pickles, naan breads, curries and rice and Mr Chua proved the entertainment. A great evening was had by all and it was lovely to see the contented smiling faces enjoying the food before hearing the laughter generated by Mr Chua’s Curry Night Quiz.
