Bonjour from France!

We have spent a full two days now.  Our arrival at Gaillac was delayed due to an electrical fault on the line.  What an experience with no-one on the train who spoke English and all the announcements in French, luckily Sandrine (teacher) texted me and we were able to let her know.  Apparently this is common.  We met together yesterday and visited Cordes sur Ciel - a medieval town founded in 1222.  The walk to the top was fairly epic with very steep narrow cobbled streets to...

Après presque deux de travail conjoint, nos correspondants kiwis ont été accueillis dans notre établissement scolaire, le collège Albert Camus de Gaillac pendant une semaine. Ce fut une semaine riche en émotions! Deux jours après leur arrivée, une cérémonie officielle a été organisée par la mairie de Gaillac. Les hymnes de nos deux pays ont retenti ce lundi matin au Monument aux Morts. Pour la première fois, les drapeaux néo-zélandais et français et les gerbes de nos deux pays ont ornés le...

We left NZ on the 25th of September for a mammoth 40 hour journey.  We stopped in Melbourne, then on to Dubai and finally to Paris.  The flight was longer as we had to avoid the usual route over Syria and Iraq.  Instead the plane flew across the mountains of Afghanistan giving the students a marvellous view.  On arriving in Paris we had 2 hours until the train left for Bordeaux.  Then we finally arrived and could sleep in a bed.  At breakfast the students thought they had died and gone to...

The students at AJHS have also been involved in the Dolores Cross Project.  
This is a project started by Dolores Ho, Chief Archivist at the Waiouru Army Museum.  
Her vision is to have every NZ grave in foreign cemeteries visited and a Dolores Cross placed there.  The grave is then photographed.  The Dolores Cross is a harakeke (flax) cross with an ANZAC poppy.  
Our students feel privileged to be part of this and see this as a service that they can provide as they are lucky to be traveling to...

On the 24th of June the students visited the Armoury at the Auckland War Memorial Museum as part of our project.  They were there to research the journey of their allocated soldier.  Each student has a soldier from the Auckland area - either Infantry Regiment or Armoured Rifles - who left NZ for France in 1916.  All of these soldiers died either in the Battle of Broodseinde or at Cambrai.  They are all buried at Tyne Cot Cemetery.

We spent the day reading and photographing information from the...

Bonjour!

We have a small group of 10 students - Year 9 and 10 - who are off to France in September this year.  At present they are meeting once a week at lunchtime to have some basic french lessons.  As we don't offer French as a subject at Albany Junior High School, the daughter of a staff member has come in to teach some basic french vocabulary to them.  I have uploaded a couple of videos of our session this week - introducing members of the family and family animals. 

We have been...