Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is set to be inundated with a series of handwritten letters from youngsters across Bahrain congratulating the 96-year-old on her Platinum Jubilee.
Four days of festivities started today across the UK to celebrate Great Britain’s longest-reigning monarch who has marked seven decades on the throne and, in Bahrain, British Ambassador Roderick Drummond and his wife, Yasmin, have been busy making the rounds of British curriculum international schools to celebrate with students.
“We made a box at school to post congratulatory messages and self-portrait stamps created by students,” said British Preparatory School principal Jasmine Smith. “The children had so much fun writing the letters to the Queen congratulating her on her 70 years on the throne, quite remarkable and something to be proud of.
Festivities
“We handed over some of the letters to the ambassador when he joined our festivities and the other letters have already been posted to the Queen in a hope they may receive a response from the royal household. We are still waiting on that as I’m sure the Queen has been inundated!”
According to BPS’s Year One teacher, Lauren Greene, her students were excited to learn about the Queen’s life as well as look back at the time she visited Bahrain in 1979. They celebrated with a tea party at the school. Almost all the decorations were made by the children and teachers at school, including paperchains, flags, beefeaters, stamps and even an Andy Warhol style pop-art of the Queen.
“As a British school, we love having the opportunity to celebrate the close and long established ties between Britain and Bahrain,” added Ms Smith.
Aside from reading the letters aloud, the British Ambassador, joined the school’s traditional street party, judged a cake competition and planted a tree in school’s teaching garden as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) campaign.
The QGC is a unique, UK-wide tree planting initiative created to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 by inviting people to ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee’.
Mr Drummond and his wife also visited St Christopher’s School in Saar. The school also staged celebrations at its senior campus in Isa Town.
Students dressed up in the colours of the Union Jack (red, white and blue) and enjoyed Jubilee-themed activities and ‘street-party’ style festivities throughout the day.
“On the auspicious occasion of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, St Christopher’s community congratulates and celebrates Queen Elizabeth II on her momentous achievement,” said St Christopher’s School principal Dr Simon Watson. “As a community, we join together with millions of other families around the world to celebrate The Queen and her 70 year reign.”
Meanwhile, the staff and students at the British School of Bahrain (BSB) in Hamala also kicked off the week with joyous and educational activities.
The Infant School students decorated their own celebration cards to send to the Queen and made their own royal crowns. Meanwhile, junior and senior students wrote newspaper articles about the Queen in English class, solving the mathematical Mystery of the Royal Cake in Maths class and created an animated version of the queen in Computing class. The Junior choir also prepared a musical performance of British songs for the whole school.
Apart from the in-school celebrations, the BSB is inviting all families within and outside the BSB community to its biggest charity event of the summer ‘The Best of British Summer Festival’ this coming Saturday (June 4) in their school grounds from 3pm-7pm.
The festival will feature indoor and outdoor activities from campus tours to carnival games and live performances by BSB students. There will also be food trucks and a raffle.
Tickets can be purchased at the school reception for BD1 and all proceeds of the event will be donated to Bahrain’s Royal Humanitarian Foundation. The school has also offered its facilities to the British Scouts and the British Embassy to host their own events over the weekend in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
mai.alkhatib@gulfweekly.com
&uuid=(email))