Ethel Gardiner Public School in Halton Hills recently welcomed a delegation of more than a dozen students and staff from its sister school from Wenjiang, China.
The two schools also took part in a sister-city agreement ceremony organized by the Town of Halton Hills.
The Wenjiang school, with a student population of 2,400, was interested in an educational exchange and Ethel Gardiner Public School was asked to be the sister school, explained Debbie de Chastelain, Principal of Ethel Gardiner. The visit by students and staff from China was a great experience, she said.
“We hope our students realized the visiting students were more like us than they were different from us," de Chastelain said. "We wanted to promote an understanding we are all similar even though we speak different languages and have different customs. They enjoyed learning, playing games, and trying to communicate in English, which was a lot of fun.”
