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‘I took a girl to see India… at the Oval!’ The words originally came from the lips of the major in Fawlty Towers, but were adopted by me as a stock phrase about three-and-a-half years ago when the idea of linking with a school in India was first suggested.
Gors Community Primary School in Swansea wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of taking on Europe and then moving on to the rest of the world, but our work with European schools through the Comenius School Partnership Programme has brought us so many benefits and exchanges of ideas that it’s encouraged us to look further afield – just as we expect the children to do. Little did we know how huge an impact these ventures into other teaching cultures was going to have on our own approaches and thinking, and how much it would influence the school’s ethos and PSHE.
So how have we utilised that European experience? In short, we’ve forged a link with a school in India, thus developing a partnership that has embedded the global dimension into the life of both communities.
Work on global citizenship issues has been a high priority at our school for several years now. We’ve collected and proudly displayed the various awards that have accompanied our endeavours, like our International School Award and our Eco Schools Awards (we’ve even needed to buy flagpoles!). But we’re especially proud of the fact that while all these are certainly ‘good’ for the school, the real prize has been the effect on the richness and diversity of the childrens’ work, and on the overall ethos of the school. This is as much qualitative as it is quantitative – the latter can be measured by the effect our global citizenship work has had on the school’s curriculum, and the former by its impact on the professional development of the teachers who deliver these particular lessons.
Our appetites were first whetted by a British Council meeting in the glorious surrounding of the Department of Trade and Industry in London (beats our staff room any day!). There was an immediate feeling that what we were entering into was important and valuable, and that maybe – just maybe – the venue for our much-hoped-for Indian experience really could change from the Oval to a town in Rajasthan.
It was fascinating to meet people who, through the work of the British Council, have had experiences in such far-flung countries of the world. One didn’t have to speak to them for long to appreciate that there was an added richness and professionalism about them that one rarely comes across in the usual run of meetings with teachers from other schools.
We found a school in Rajasthan that seemed to have the same values and aims that we wanted from a linking project. With expert advice from the British Council, we got our bid sent off in time to apply for a grant and were consequently delighted to be awarded one – a DFID Global School Partnerships Reciprocal Visit Grant, to be precise. A visit date was set for February 2004.
Having decided to match-fund our DFID grant so that a second colleague could also visit our new partner school, we were suddenly off and plunging into an entirely new world.
There were so many memorable experiences from the visit that it’s hard not to mention them all, but I’d like to share some of them here, as they have without doubt changed the way our school views itself and others.
For example, we spent half a day teaching in an Indian government-funded school – 70 children in each small classroom, seated on the floor, taking their lessons before having their ‘free school dinners’ that had been cooked in a cauldron on a log fire in the dirt playground outside. The headteacher talked to us of his plans for the pupils and the school. Amazingly, many of the concerns he raised were very similar to those we deal with, including the inevitable attendance issues, relationships with parents and standards of attainment.
We also visited a school for tribal children who had previously received no education. Run by a charity, this residential establishment caters for children who are brought in from their villages for the one month of formal education they will have in their lifetime. We were humbled by the progress that the mainly unqualified teachers made with these most desperate of scholars.
The aim of our Reciprocal Visit Grant was to allow us at Gors Community School to develop our own curriculum, and for our partners to develop theirs. But more than that, the visit became one of those experiences that not only affect one’s professional attitudes, approach and expectations, but actually make one become a different person. This was reinforced by a reciprocal visit by teachers from Rajasthan in May 2004, which allowed both schools to further develop the partnership.
The gains – both personal and professional – from the experience have been immeasurable, just like the effects on the ethos of our school as a whole. My advice? The Oval just won’t do! Enter an enriching world, and change the way your school looks at itself and others forever.
Keith Atkins is the headteacher at Gors Community Primary School in Swansea, Wales
This is a consortium initiative by the British Council, Cambridge Education Foundation, UK One World Linking Association (UKOWLA) and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). It offers advice and guidance, professional development opportunities and grants to schools in the UK and in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America that use partnerships to develop a global dimension in the curriculum. Visit the Global School Partnership website.
Gors Community primary School and its Indian partner school have recently secured a three-year DFID Global School Partnerships Curriculum Project grant that will support additional teacher exchange visits and the development of their joint activities. The focus of their curriculum project is water. Global Connections Development Education Centre in Pembroke has also been providing support for Gors School in the form of global dimension resources for the project.
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