On Tuesday 27th June, 60 BGS Year 7 students visited the Teikyo Foundation Japanese school in Wexham Park for their annual BGS Japanese Day.

Once again, the Teikyo staff and students welcomed the BGS Year 7 students with open-arms offering them an enjoyable, enriching and invaluable experience of Japanese culture and traditions. Activities included participating in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, trying on a Kimono, preparing rice and making traditional kites on which students were able to write their names, interests and favourite food / pets in Japanese characters offering linguistic development. The most exciting addition which seemed to be a true highlight for the BGS students was the opportunity to test and develop their ninja skills with shadow foam sword fighting with students wearing blindfolds and testing their instincts. Some students could certainly consider trying fencing in future with their amazing instincts!

Once again it was an amazing day and wonderful experience for the BGS Year 7 students and hopefully this will continue to reinforce the strong and long-standing link between the two schools for many years to come. We look forward to welcoming the Teikyo students here at some point during the next year 2023-24.

Please find below comments from some students who participated in the visit.

‘ I thought that the trip to Teikyo Japanese school was a really fun and exciting experience, and I really enjoyed all of the activities and learning more about Japanese culture. My favourite activity was the ninja skills where we put blindfolds on and tried to fight each other with swords. I also thought it was fun putting the kimono on and making kites and flying them. On our kites, we wrote down our favourite things and learnt how to write them in japanese. We also learnt how to make sticky rice and threw ninja stars at targets. We also had a Japanese tea ceremony. I didn’t quite like the tea but I liked the pancake that they gave us. I really enjoyed the lunch they gave us and playing football with some of the students. Overall, I would highly recommend the trip to other students and all the students at the school were very friendly and helpful. ‘ DN, R5.

---

‘ To start off, the place was very pleasing because we learnt how to play a game that a youtuber made, how to make kites, how to make their rice and lastly how to put their kimonos on.

For the game that we played it was really fun because the game included hitting someone with a soft sword with a blindfold on so the game was all about intuition which was very amusing. When we were making our kites, we had to write in Japanese and it was really confusing at first but then they showed me how to understand and it was quite entertaining.

Next, we had an activity when it involved beating rice, which doesn't sound too good, but it was a load of fun. After eating that rice up, we had to dress up in kimonos and I think that was the most fun because we got to take photos.’ AS, R5.

Mr J. Earnshaw-Crofts.

July 2023.