In English, Year 5 have enjoyed reading Oranges in No Man’s Land in English lessons. The story tells of a young girl in Beirut who is faced with a dilemma when her Grandma becomes ill. In order to help, Ayesha must decide if she should risk her life to cross into enemy territory to obtain some life-saving medicine. This problem is made more difficult as Ayesha needs to cross two checkpoints guarded by soldiers before finding her way through city streets to find a doctor. In class, we have spent some time discussing how Ayesha- and other characters- feel at different points in the story and given possible reasons for these emotions. This week, the classes spent a lesson helping Ayesha make her decision by giving detailed reasons why she should, or shouldn’t, try to get her Grandmother some medicine. The classes then split into two halves and each child presented their argument before Ayesha made her final decision- to cross the ‘Green Line’ so that she could save Grandma. Both teachers were extremely impressed with the children’s understanding of the dilemma and the detail that they gave when expressing their point of view.
