Year 7 MEP Students Intensive Learning Day

Year 7 Mandarin Excellence Programme students took part in their Intensive Learning Day on Wednesday 25th June, where they had the opportunity to explore Chinese culture through a range of hands-on activities. As part of the experience, they made traditional Chinese dumplings from scratch, preparing the ingredients and making two delicious varieties: pork with spring onion, and egg with Chinese cabbage.

In addition to cooking, students also tried shuttlecock kicking (jianzi), a popular traditional Chinese sport, which they thoroughly enjoyed. The day offered a fun and engaging way to deepen their understanding of Chinese language, culture, and customs.

A big thank you to the DT and Mandarin departments for their invaluable support in making this enriching cultural experience such a success.

Student comments: 

I participated in making dumplings in MEP.  I really enjoyed learning about Chinese culture while cooking. On  Wednesday my Mandarin teacher took us to the food room and told us we were making jiao zi (dumplings in Chinese). Before we made our dumplings we got introduced to words related to what we were making.

Matei, 7A

As a Year 7 MEP student, I really enjoyed the day! Making dumplings was so much fun — it was my first time, and I loved learning how to fold them properly. They tasted delicious, especially because we made them ourselves. After that, playing jianzi was awesome. It was a bit tricky at first, but once I got the hang of it, I didn’t want to stop. It was a great way to learn more about Chinese culture while having fun with my friends.

Kateryna, 7B

On Wednesday we got to make some dumplings and did jianzi which is a chinese shuttlecock. For the dumplings we got to work in twos or threes so our ingredients had to be doubled. This was a very fun experience as this was fun and educational. For the jianzi we had to kick it and we had competitions to see who could kick it the most.

Adriana, 7B

On Wednesday we made some dumplings, which was my first time. I really enjoyed it. The teachers gave us easy and clear instructions and helped us when we needed it. The dumplings were really good and I will definitely make the recipe again at home. After that we played jianzi (chinese shuttlecock). It was really fun but also very hard to master but it was nice being with my friends playing together and as a Year 7 mep group. At the end we did a competition of who can kick the jianzi the most which was a lovely way to end a day of fun activities.

Keyna, 7A