Hello everyone!
Haileybury
Astana, the school I work at, has links to the prestigious Haileybury school in
England. As such, the former was successful in its bid to join COBIS – the
Council of British International Schools – shortly after opening last year.
COBIS host many events, conferences and competitions for staff and children,
but there was one that we were particularly looking forward to.
We were
privileged enough to have been invited to take part in the inaugural COBIS
Games. Devised by the British School in Prague, this was a sports competition
taking in three disciplines – swimming, athletics and football. Twelve schools
made their way to the capital of the Czech Republic, which has a special place
in my heart as I did my TEFL course here in 2008, to compete for honour. Not to
mention four huge trophies.
Most of the
schools were from Europe, so had a short, hassle-free flight to Prague. Living
in a relatively remote outpost, we had a laborious trip to get to the host
city, involving two flights on Aerosvit (I can’t recommend an airline that
gives you only one hot meal over the course of four flights) and a five hour
wait in Kyiv. Luckily, our children were in good spirits, thanks in no part to
their excitement at going on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Or due to
playing on their iPads…
Prague
didn’t take long to remind me of how beautiful it is, and how different cities
are in Europe from the wacky designs of Astana. From lush green fields to
quaint, quiet cobbled streets, this modest city immediately highlighted its
vast charm. We spent a morning walking around the city to show the children the
main sights, including the astronomical clock and Charles Bridge, before taking
a boat ride down the Vltava River.
There are
many enticing activities in Prague. One of them was unfortunately off-limits
for us – at least until the children had been tucked away into bed. The Czech
Republic has copious amounts of cheap, high quality piva, which we managed to
sample each night due to the inexplicable number of pubs even near our hotel on
the outskirts of the city. How they stay in business is beyond me, but we tried
to help them by sampling the local beer. We normally needed one each evening
after trying to tend to 13 children – not to mention quite a few parents who
had decided to come with us – throughout each day.
I also added
another job to my CV by becoming a tour guide for our group around Prague
Castle, as we had arrived too late to get on a proper tour. Leaving out most of
the architectural information in favour of telling them about Nazis seemed to
go down well. Future job, perhaps! We also popped up to Prague Zoo, which was a
whirlwind and very enjoyable experience. The giraffes were particularly
impressive.
However, we
were not here for a holiday, in spite of what the parents may have thought. We
were here to compete. Day one was swimming in an incredible and large arena. It
was particularly large for our children, many of whom had never seen let alone
swum in a 50m pool. They tried hard and improved on most of their times, but
were never in contention for medals when pitted against some specialist
swimming schools. One 11-year-old girl from the Abu Dhabi school swam 50m
freestyle in 37 seconds – a time that achieves an A*. At IGCSE. It also is
probably quicker than I could swim it.
After we had
cured the despondency of the children with some retail therapy they were back
in high spirits for the second day of competition – athletics. This was the day
that piqued my interest, as I had been coaching athletics for the last 4
months. Once again we were up against some phenomenal opposition, but we
improved significantly. Almost every child smashed their PB, and a few children
came close to reaching running finals. This was also the day when our mantra
for the whole tour – ‘be the best you can be’ – was finally understood and
appreciated by the children, who subsequently enjoyed themselves a lot more.
What also improved their attitude was the fact that we actually won an event – the short javelin. Our boy Iliyas threw a monstrous 23.6 metres, which handsomely won the competition.
The final
day was football. I had warned the children to lower their expectations – words
which turned out to be prophetic as we lost each game without scoring a goal.
The other Haileybury school from Almaty suffered a similar fate. Football is
played with a better structure and is just more natural for children from
Europe to get involved in. Two of the boys from the Prague school are on the
books of Sparta Prague, which again showed the quality of the opposition.
Ultimately,
it was a fantastic learning experience for all of us. It has shown the children
that they can improve and hopefully will give them the incentive to do so. Of the objectives we set,
we didn’t come last and the children all improved their times or scores in at
least one discipline. We finished the place below Almaty, but didn’t disgrace
ourselves, and even won a gold medal.
We also had
great fun in the great city of Prague. Next year’s COBIS Games, which were
superbly organised and run by the Prague British School, will be in the
Netherlands. We have been invited back, and now know what we have to do to
achieve greater results next year. I’m sure we can find some fun in the Dutch
sun whilst we are there!
Love you all
Matt
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