Do you collaborate with teachers and children from around the world? Perhaps you have completed the International School Award from the British Council? The International School Award is a way of Developing & celebrating the international dimension, it is open to all UK schools and it’s free of charge! Since 1999 10,000 schools have gained an award. You can find out more about it here: http://bit.ly/atEsHt
This is a recent project that I created and worked on with over 50 schools from 11 different countries. You can read more about the exciting project called The Beautiful Game: http://bit.ly/a6YvO4
With the advances in technology happening every day in the 21st century the world is a much smaller place. One of the things that we must prepare our students for in the challenges of living and working in the 21st century is the need to be a ‘global citizen’. In addition with relative ease you could open your classroom door to the outside world just simply by having a cheap webcam on your laptop and linking via video conference to classrooms on the other side of the world. One good reason why you may want to consider this is that it is a very simple way to engage and inspire students – just try it please and you will see exactly what I mean. Over the last couple of years that I have been at Saltash.net I have slowly built up a huge list of international contacts in many countries around the world that would love to link up with you on any small scale project particularly if it is a hard to teach topic within your subject. An international link could really liven it up.
As you know or may know if you regularly read my blog in the last academic year we were working towards our Full International School Award status which meant that we have to be involve the whole school in about nine different curriculum, cross curricular and whole school international projects during 2009-2010. We collated a huge portfolio of evidence for this during July and sent it off to the British Council to evaluate the progress we have made as a school – fingers crossed that they will contact us in October this year to say that we have been given the full award. If we achieve the full status we will then have this for the next three years but it is important that the good work continues. *Actually just as I was publishing this blog post we have now heard a lot earlier than expected that our school now has been awarded the Full International School status which is absolutely fantastic news!
The following quotes were taken from some of the student, teacher and visitor evaluations that we submitted to the British Council about international projects that took place at our school during 2009-2010. As you can see the International dimension can have such a positive impact on our school community and the learning that takes place:
“It has truly inspired me to try to collaborate more with other teachers globally. It really does invigorate you and your teaching. It is a great experience for all involved.”
“The impact on me was both powerful and inspiring. The children had a lot of well-focussed energy and it was excellent to see how much passion they had for their work and for what they were working on. It was a great privilege and during the video conference it was emotional to see the compassion from the young people of Saltash.”
“By doing a project on this scale, it has ensured that links are made with these schools and that means that other projects can be done in the future. I feel that I have learnt a lot, both about the countries, and different cultures as well as the difference in the education systems of the partner schools.”
“We have learnt lots about other cultures, about other kids around the world and what it is like to live and to go to school where they do. We also learnt about how the technology worked to do the video conference and helped develop our video making skills”
I would love to hear if you have the International School Award or are planning to go for it? What type of projects do you have planned? Would you like to collaborate on future projects with our school? Please get in touch