On Thursday, 8th June, Welton Primary welcomed some special visitors into their school who’d travelled thousands of miles to be with them.

The SAI International School, India, flew over for a ten day visit to UK schools which continues until 16th June.

The SAI Global Immersion Programme (GIP) to United Kingdom began in June 2019. Welton has welcomed visitors once a year since then, with the exception of lockdown when online meetings were held.

Now in its fourth year, children were excited to meet the visitors face to face again and were eager to ask them questions about their lives.

The day started off with a shared assembly, where the SAI school displayed a presentation for their hosts. The guests told Welton Primary School of their history, culture and wonderful cuisine.

The schools engage in collaborative work prior to their meeting. This year, the project was called ‘grandparents know best,’ which included recipes and stories from older relatives from pupils of the schools.

To finish off the assembly, Welton pupils joined in with SAI’s ‘happiness song’ which is sang every day at their school.

Welton Primary School Headteacher Mr John Snell was pleased with how the day had gone.

“Special days like this are brilliant for our children. We’ve been able to exercise and demonstrate some of our core values of uniqueness, collaboration and respect today which has been a wonderful opportunity for us all.”

“Even though we are all so different and unique, this has really highlighted how we are all similar as well. We’ve been learning in the assembly about our different cultures and cuisines, but the children are outside now at lunchtime having conversations about COVID, pets and the climate, and are able to really relate to one another.”

“I love learning more about how other schools are run and what they do differently to us, so it’s a good opportunity for us as teachers to learn from others as well.”