Comenius Visits

In order to encourage our pupils to gain a greater understanding of the world and its many cultures, we have made links with schools in countries around the world. Communication with children overseas gives our pupils real access to other cultures and compliments their learning. BELGIUM: In June Mrs Mason, Mr Burford and Mrs Khan went to Belgium as part of our Comenius cultural project. They were joined by four childrenIkhlas, Sarha, Maaz and Alisha went by train to Belgium. They visited Bruges, Rosalares and visited Rollegem Kappelle School. They learnt a great deal about life in Belgium and they were really surprised that the school was so different from our school. All the children and staff in Belgium welcomed them so kindly that they felt like star guests for the whole week. HUNGARY: Mrs Begum, Mrs Solanki and Mr Chardin took a group of children to Hungary to visit a school in a city called Debrecen. The children were from year 6 and they were Zoiya, Sana, Arbarb, Harfiza and Aneesa. The group spent time at the school and were warmly welcomed in the traditional way with bread and salt. The children really enjoyed the talent show and were amazed at the quality of the acts and their costumes. Hungary proved to be a friendly, clean and welcoming place and everyone had a marvellous time. ROMANIA: In October Mr Aldred, Mrs Grewal, Miss Andrews, Iqra, Sadhika and Misbah from year 5 all flew to Bucharest in Romania. The purpose of the visit was to meet up with children and teachers involved in the European Cultural and Historical Heritage Comenius project. The children gave a wonderful presentation at the Romanian National Library on Traditional and Contemporary British Dances. They also visited the host school and spent time working on art and dance related projects. They spent time in Transylvania visiting King Carloss castle and Draculas Castle. The visit was a wonderful opportunity for them all to spend time in a beautiful country with fantastic teachers and children from all over Europe. UGANDA: In 2011 we established a Global School Partnership with Namagunga Primary Boarding School in Kampala, Uganda. Reciprocal visits were carried out in 2011/2012, with two of our staff visiting Uganda in November 2011 and the head teacher and deputy from Uganda visiting our school in March 2012. During these visits, joint curriculum work was planned for the next two academic years. Funding for this partnership temporarily ceased in March 2012, however the British Council, UK Aid and the Department for International Development have launched a new programme of funding, Connecting Classrooms, which may help us continue to further this partnership link. On the next page, you can see our joint sustainability charter. FRANCE: In January 2011, we began a video conferencing project with Lapin Blanc Primary School in Marseille, France. This project continued in 2012 and has gone from strength to strength. Pupils exchange cultural information in both English and French through videoconferencing sessions. These sessions greatly enhance our modern foreign language teaching in the participating class. We hope to expand this partnership this academic year. MARTINIQUE: In March 2012 and again in June 2013, teachers from Birchfield School visited Martinique as part of the Comenius project. The objective was to plan future projects and share ideas on sustainability and community cohesion.

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