10/29/2021
Getting Acquainted through Theatre and Games
To help experienced and newly arrived Salem students get better acquainted with each other, the school organised an Integration Day full of fun and challenging activities.

IC Classes Year 8-10: “For our Integration, all of the IC classes met on the sports field. We started off by playing a few games against the other classes by lining up according to our birthdays, height, shoe sizes etc., but without talking to each other. It was a fun exercise to get to know everyone better without actually having to communicate with each other. I’m sure it helped the shyer ones among us to open up and join in. The second game we played started with being divided into random groups and choosing a scenario – from a movie, TV show, history, or daily life – which we then mimed in front of the other groups. It was pretty chaotic, but a great experience! In the end, one group was crowned the winner for their flawless re-enactment of a scene from the film Titanic. Many thanks to our teachers and staff of the IC team who came up with these ideas to bring us all closer together!“

Claire Li, 10E2

Year 9: “On Integration Day, we students of Year 9 mastered a series of stations together that required using our skills, creativity and teamwork. In groups that included old and new students we got to know each other better. One task was to make creative photos. All the teams passed the challenge. I would call that a successful day.”

Lili Kiesel, 9D1

Year 10: “Right after breakfast we made our way to our new classrooms. There we saw many old and new faces, got introduced to one another and made some plans for the new school year. Then the integration games began. For our year group it meant rehearsing and presenting a theatre play. Each of our class groups was assigned a different fairy tale. My group performed Sleeping Beauty. First, we read it together carefully, assigned the different roles and then began to rehearse it. After two hours we presented our piece in front of the other class groups.”

My Nguyen, 10D3

Salem International College: “Our first activity on Induction Day was a trust exercise that involved falling backwards off a ladder into the arms of our fellow students. At first, only a handful of students trusted the group enough to do so. However, by the end, the small friendship circles had widened to include more people. After an all too short archery practice activity, we moved on to another team building exercise, this time with a list of odd tasks that required using everyone’s brains, creativity, and knowledge to solve. For example, we had to decide how to build a human pyramid. That required everyone’s participation and communication and prepared us perfectly for the next task: slackline racing. For this,we went to the station that required four anchors to keep a fifth person balanced on a slackline. After a few painful falls, we understood much better the importance of communication, teamwork, and community. Through these activities we became a much closer group than any of us had expected we could be prior to the activities.”

Anthony Ying, IB1

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