Laura Suna talks about the history and goals of the Romanian Saturday School Nicolae Iorga.

Express & Star

Head of curriculum Laura Suna speaks about the Nicolae Iorga Romanian Saturday School and how it teaches youngsters from or with Romanian heritage to learn the language and about the culture of the country.

Transcript

00:00we're all good for that yeah that's good on there okay so let's talk about the school first of all

00:07in terms of the setup of it so tell me a bit about how the school is actually set up

00:12now now yeah so now we have five groups which work in let's just say four different rooms

00:23obviously there are they are separated in terms of age and ability and sometimes unlike in the

00:35british state school age doesn't mean that doesn't necessarily mean the same level of ability

00:41in terms of romanian speaking writing because children being here feel welcome feel happy

00:48and they sometimes end up by just speaking obviously english fluently and not speaking

00:55romanian as well or maybe not speaking it at all so a lot of the kids who come here they're not

01:03born in romania they're born to romanian parents the majority of them are in this situation plus

01:08we have children from mixed families where one of the parents is british like born in here

01:15or of another nationality we have now an interesting case a mother is romanian and the father is chinese

01:25so they are aspiring and i think it's brilliant and ambitious and wonderful um that their children

01:33learn all three languages and obviously they're fluent in english i don't know about chinese but

01:38they are learning romanian as well and so when the children come here and they've got what's the

01:42curriculum for them when they come here on a saturday right so um it was it it is being built around

01:51the children yeah and being in our fifth year we were able to see some of them progress and go to the

01:58next level so it's i'm trying to build it progressively um from you know from a starting uh point and then up

02:09to a level where they're not only uh they're not only supposed to to speak and um communicate and

02:16understand um english sorry romanian properly but also be able to read um a poem or um fiction

02:25and be able to comment upon that uh do some grammar exercises romanian grammar is much more difficult

02:31than the english one and um yes so we're doing stuff like that at the upper level so it's almost a case of

02:39they can come here and they can basically immerse themselves in romanian culture for a few hours

02:42that is it that so that what i've said is the the purely academic part which is very important

02:49um i am not fully aware of how other schools like saturday schools work but to us to me it was very

02:57important uh because i think they need to rely on something to be able to communicate confidently

03:02on the other hand i also think and mariana what our vision is is a common one that they need to know

03:08about their roots yeah they need to know about their heritage they need to be able to be on

03:13communicated with grandparents and uncles and aunts they need to be able to understand their

03:19family's culture which is to appoint their own culture and be proud of it and apply it and speak

03:26about it uh wear their costumes um no not know about national our our cuisine the romanian cuisine

03:35and we did some some kind of simple basic cooking here um know about our dances um i don't know

03:43traditions celebrations and we do that sometimes it's quite difficult to organize because it involves

03:49a little bit more work than the the epidemic thing but every lesson has at least one feature of that

03:57because we're trying to to build our children in you know around education where we see them as as

04:03round people uh beyond socializing and and everything else and we also are trying because i i was aware

04:11in my i'm a mother so my my children are here my daughters are here so i was aware that for example she

04:18she's not able to communicate what she's learning in math for example into in romanian she can only

04:24do that in english so i thought math is math but if they don't know uh the concept in romanian and

04:30in some cases the parents will decide to go back to romania so they will function but they will have

04:37this kind of i don't know handicap the world is not the best one but you know what i mean by not

04:43understanding not being able to communicate or maybe not even understanding what the teacher says even if

04:48even if maths should be the same everywhere so i thought they should be able to have these concepts

04:52of maths knowledge about the environment and so on so they are learning geography uh some some parts of

04:58the some romanian history basic one of course and um i know there's been misconceptions from people

05:05about what this school actually is and the purpose of it it's you obviously these kids yeah monday to

05:11friday they've got their own school they're going to school within the community this is it's a special

05:16school that they can come to if they choose to do so of course this is that's why we are actually

05:23proud and we are a bit sad that people some people may not understand the the role of the school

05:29because these children are encouraged to go to the to the british school to this like you're saying to

05:35the monday to friday school not only that but we're building the i'm i'm trying to build a curriculum

05:41around so that it goes hand in hand with the british one so they're not in in any kind of shock because

05:48if i followed the romanian curriculum that would be too difficult that would create some kind of um

05:54i don't know misunderstandings and discourage them but this is meant to be like a completion of the of

06:00the british one and sometimes we even study in parallel because for example i i found out that dacians

06:07our ancestors came at some point came to britain and we we've visited hadrian's wall and i found

06:13out that there were dacians brought there after the roman conquest uh the celtz were conquered by

06:19by the romans the dacians were come in romania were come today's romania so we sometimes we draw

06:25parallel parallel so when there was the coronation of king charles we talked about our kings and so on so

06:30they are encouraged to like i'm saying to to build their personality in in a round way and to grow up

06:37as as uh informed people and to know a little bit about everything as well as well as that you're also

06:43mixing with the the local community as well because the area in somewhere albury and the

06:47family in general is a very diverse area yes it is and they learn at the same time because we are in

06:53the same building with um and this is a school i think we're really lucky to to function in a proper

06:59school um so they meet polish children in the past they were ukrainian children and yes that there's

07:05there's a miss and then of course they have friends at school who are english people and i think it's

07:10you know it's all for the better actually and uh just in general i can see by you know how you talk

07:15about it you're very proud of what this school does i am very proud and i think we all are very proud

07:21not only uh mariana who is the founder of the school and the administrator and who provides

07:26everything so that we are you know ready to give the children the best uh and the volunteers but

07:32also i think the parents are really proud because they and they are grateful because we were embraced

07:38here in this country we were um you know we were accepted and in many places in most cases um diversity

07:47is is celebrated rather than discriminated and so being part of this makes them proud as well

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