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During World Awarness Week Year 7 studied Africa. We found out that Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia.

Our day began with a whole school read. Miss Crawford and Miss Gray had put together a selection of short stories from Africa, which we read.

We were then divided into three groups and everyone took part in three different activities. One of these was a making African masks with Mr Perkins. We each worked with a partner and had just under an hour to design and make our masks. In West Africa masks are used in religious ceremonies to communicate with spirits and ancestors. Many African masks represent animals. Another activity was learning about African music and playing African drums with Mr Novkovic and Mr Brown. There were more then sixteen drums and we all had a go at playing different rhythms. It was a great sound as we all drummed together. The third activity of the morning was carrying out some research. We each pulled a country out of a hat and used the Internet to find out as much as we could about our chosen country. We wrote down as much as we could and drew the country’s flag on an outline of the country and stuck it onto a giant outline map of Africa.

In the afternoon we watched a DVD on the work of Christian Aid in Kenya, followed by a discussion. We also had a fabulous talk on African cookery with Mrs Ashbee showing us some very colorful ingredients. We watched her cook and we sampled all sorts of savories and unusual fruits.

It was a great day and we have all learnt a lot more about Africa.

Simon Pomeroy