At Ingla, every term ends with a celebration of food and culture during our International Food Day. Before our big end-of-term party we like to have a small, quiet get-together at our school in Turnpike Lane for an afternoon of games, chatting, and an international buffet of pastries and homemade goodies with our students.

Europe, South America, and Asia were all represented, and every dish had a story to go along with it about family traditions, recipes, and the best time of year to eat this particular dish.

Students were hopping around like frogs, nibbling on non-existent carrots like Easter rabbits, and yo-yoing with air yo-yos as everyone struggled to find the obscure word in English for this object that they definitely knew but couldn’t name. After our Inglans had caught their breath, we had a few rounds of a quiz to test our students’ knowledge on geography, English, sport, and more.

This is an opportunity for everyone to close out the term, say goodbye to our leavers, and share a bit about their country through the universal language of food. Our winter 2018 term was no different, as our students came out in force, creating a mouth-watering spread that included a Spanish omelette, a selection of Polish cold cuts, homemade Turkish borek, Chinese noodles with black mushrooms, and Portuguese natas, among many other delicious dishes.

Amid the food and stories games were being played. Charades, as always, was a big hit. Everyone got into the International Food Day spirit, leaving aside their shyness and inhibitions and acting out even the most ridiculous of things for their teammates to guess.

It was great to see the spirit of collaboration among our students. Everyone put in a great effort to come up with the right answers and spit them out without getting crumbs everywhere. International Food Day was a great success, and a fitting prelude to Ingla’s Coming of Spring party later that night…