A highly successful cultural exchange visit, Coventry July 2024
Historically, HBISP has organized exchanges with schools in the North-East of England. This July, we broke new ground with an exchange between Baoding High School and Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Coventry. Cardinal Newman School was an excellent choice for the exchange due to its culturally diverse student body, which allowed the visiting students to connect and build friendships with peers from various heritages they might not have been familiar with before.
44 Chinese students spent four days in Coventry with students from Cardinal Newman, engaging in activities on the school site and offsite in the Black Country Geopark. This included a showcase of each school’s performing arts talents, ranging from Bollywood performances to violin solos.
Offsite, everyone spent the day at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, which included an underground boat trip on the Dudley Canal. On the last day of the visit, ‘Lady Godiva’ led a walking tour of old Coventry, followed by a Civic Reception with the Lord Mayor – certainly a first for one of our visits! The visit was rounded off by a ‘mini-festival’ picnic in the Coventry Peace Orchard.
Feedback from all students confirmed the popularity of bringing these young people together to learn and exchange experiences. A big thank you to everyone at Cardinal Newman who worked hard to make the visit a success.
The Baoding High students subsequently ventured further South, spending time in Cambridge before a guided tour of the Emirates Football Stadium and enjoying two days of sightseeing and museum visits in London.
