Round Square online 'postcard'

On a frosty morning in mid-May, six Years 7 and 8 students participated in an online 'Postcard' hosted by Chadwick School in Los Angeles, USA.

The Zoom call had over 100 participants from 16 Round Square schools from Brazil, Armenia, China, Canada, USA, India, Australia and Peru. A diverse range of time zones were catered for with our students about to begin their school day and other students well into the evening.

The Chadwick hosts first shared a short presentation by their middle-year students about life in Los Angeles and Chadwick school before delving into topics including: homelessness in the United States, the impact of the Californian wildfires and pollution in Los Angeles.

During the call, the students were split off into 10 different breakout rooms where they were able to share their own experiences of school life during COVID and speak about the issue of homelessness from their own country's perspective. During each of the breakouts, the Radford students were able to share their ideas with other group members and also dispel the idea that Australian students ride kangaroos to school!

Our students found it particularly interesting to find out that some students were attending school wearing masks, some were attending school only on alternate days and, in some instances, participants have been undertaking their studies at home for over 12 months.

Our students found the experience to be a wonderful opportunity to learn more about what life is like for students their age across the world.

It was a privilege to see our students represented in the summary of the call, with Bonnie Hardy presenting a reflection of her learning to the entire group during the call and Aayush Bhatia winning the online quiz based on knowledge of the content discussed during the session.

All the participants would highly recommend other students consider joining these opportunities when they are made available so that they can build connections with students from around the globe and learn more about the issues impacting the world around us.