Mrs Brown's Long Service Leave Adventures

During my long service leave in Term 4 of 2015 I really did have an excellent adventure in Morocco, England and France.

I have wanted to visit Morocco for a long time as it is a theme that features in our Year 11 French programme. I am so pleased that I will now be able to impart to my students the firsthand knowledge I have gained by visiting this spectacular country and learning about some of its history and customs.  The three highlights were Volubilis, Fès and Chefchaouen.  Volubilis is the site of the ancient Roman ruins not far from Moulay Idriss.  The buildings on this site date back to the first century.  There were richly appointed residences all with mosaics; these impressive works appear all around Volubilis and have not been restored.  In Fès I visitied the labyrinth of streets in the medina. The medina stretches over 740 acres and is where all sorts of artisans’ workshops can be found: pottery and mosaics; leather tanneries; silversmiths; and weavers.  But it was Chefchaouen which really stole my heart.  It was much more peaceful that other Moroccan cities we visited and the blue walls throughout the city made every street look picture postcard perfect.  This custom dates back to when the Jews fled to Chefchaouen from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition and they painted the buildings blue to remind them of God.

In England, I was able to attend the Firefly annual conference in Birmingham where the co-founders, Simon and Joe, gave a sneak peek of things that are coming in the not too distant future.  I’m sure St Ursula’s College students will benefit even more from this amazing Learning Management System with the introduction of new features.  In London, I visited the Firefly head office where I was shown where it all began.  I also had the privilege of sharing some of the great work teachers have been doing on our Firefly pages at St Ursula’s with the Firefly team.

Since my stay in France totalled over three months, it’s hard to pick a highlight; however, one of them was visiting Lycée Notre Dame le Ménimur, an Ursuline high school in Vannes in the region of Brittany.  I was welcomed so warmly into the classrooms and homes of a number of teachers.  I particularly enjoyed visiting the classrooms and sharing information about Australia and St Ursula’s College.  The students were genuinely interested in learning about their link with a school on the other side of the planet, and Australian history and culture, but they were particularly intrigued by some of our wonderful animal life.  In the homes of my hosts I was able to try some local specialities which included andouille, a sausage made from offal (which, surprisingly, I liked), a gwen ah du (a decadent salted caramel and chocolate cake) and gochtial, which is a brioche type bread.  According to one of my hosts, Saint Armel (a small town not far from Vannes), is the only place where one can purchase an authentic gochtial.  During my time in Vannes, I was also able to visit some spectacular sites such as the Neolithic standing stones of Carnac and the rugged Atlantic coastline near Saint Gildas de Rhuys.  I am so grateful for the insights I was given into school and family life in Vannes and for the amazing hospitality I was shown.  I hope that our links with this wonderful school community will develop with a view to cultural exchanges between our students.