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St Clere’s School is a mixed comprehensive for pupils aged 11-16. The school is situated in Stanford-Le-Hope, Thurrock, Essex. There are about 1,200 pupils on role. The school was awarded Language College status in 2001 and has just been granted re-designation as a Language College having ‘substantially met’ the criteria. Thurrock is a predominantly white area with very few young people staying on for further or higher education, as such, we believe we are in an area which needs a successful Language College to raise awareness of cultural diversity.
The ‘Foreign Language School Affiliated to Yunnan University’ is situated in the city of Kunming, Yunnan in the SW of China. The school is a selective state middle school catering for pupils aged 15-18. The school is also a specialist language school. Pupils go to the school from all over the region and many live away from home as boarders. There are three year groups and each year group has four classes made up of approx 50-60 pupils.
The partnership was forged in 2002 following a link made on a British Council head teachers delegation visit to China. To cement the agreement the head teacher from our partner school in China visited St Clere’s and then a single teacher visit was made in April 2003 to China (funded by the British Council) in order to sign the school linking agreement, covering the period 2002-2008. The main objectives of the partnership are:
- Improved language learning in both establishments
- Greater understanding of the other’s culture in both partner institutions
In the first year of our partnership we employed a Mandarin speaking assistant from our partner school through the British Council CLA programme. This helped to build the partnership further and we introduced Mandarin as an extra curricular language club at lunchtimes and after school. Pupils started pen-friend relationships and the first cultural exchange trips took place in February 2004 and July 2004.
In the second and third year we again employed Mandarin assistants from our partner school through the British Council CLA programme and we have gradually built on the number of Chinese related activities and clubs in school both within the curriculum and extra-curricular. Mandarin has been an option GCSE subject since 2004 and this year was introduced as a mandatory subject for Gifted and Talented Year 7s.
In 2005 St Clere’s was successful in applying for funding from the British Council for a Joint Curriculum Project. The project is entitled ‘Festival of Friendship’.
There are three main areas to the project:
- Citizenship, PSHE, RE, Technology in the UK are linked to English classes in China. Pupils learned about customs, history and traditions associated with the main festivals celebrated in each country. Teachers and pupils created resources that were sent to the partner school. The biggest celebrations were Christmas (in China) and Chinese New Year (UK). All years in both schools were involved.
- There was also a Year 8 English project with Grade 2 English classes in China. Teachers and classes were linked and an action plan was created around our English department’s Schemes of Work: Newspapers and Media; Speeches and Persuasive writing; Autobiography, including studying ‘Chinese Cinderella’ by Adeline Yen Mah; Poetry; writing styles; Shakespeare.
- .An international pupil forum was created for pupils involved in the project exchange trip. Pupils discussed ideas for present and future projects then wrote, designed and compiled articles for a bi-lingual newspaper.
The most successful aspect of this project has been celebrating each others’ festivals. The reason for this success was the fact that this activity reached and involved a wide variety of pupils and teachers across a number of year groups and subject areas.
A Chinese cookery club was established in November 2005 and the children involved wanted to know that their experience would lead to something else. We therefore decided to hold a full Chinese Evening that would be catered for by the Chinese cookery club. A number of enthusiastic teachers in Technology helped to make the evening a success. A lunchtime club had also been established in November to start designing and building a Chinese Dragon – this club also attracted children from all year groups. The music department played an instrumental role in directing the evening and again a variety of pupils were involved in stage production, lighting and sound. Over 100 pupils were involved in putting on the event from all year groups. However the evening was only able to take place due to the hard work and effort of our Chinese Assistant who was on secondment from our partner school.
All children that had been involved in learning Mandarin took part in the evening and our Chinese Assistant (Jia Qing) adapted and directed a Chinese Play with a class of Year 7’s who had been studying Mandarin as part of their core timetable. The evening was arranged to coincide with our Chinese delegation project visit of pupils and teachers from our partner school. Our Chinese partners brought traditional Chinese costumes over and had also prepared a song and dance number that was performed on the evening. The school choir performed songs in Chinese and two pupils gave a martial arts demonstration.
Another highlight of the evening was a direct result from our English project: one element of the project was for UK pupils to research the importance and relevance of learning Chinese and then write a persuasive speech on this topic to persuade young people to learn Chinese. Many of the pupils found their research extremely convincing and three girls adapted their speech to enter a local public speaking competition. This speech was presented at the Chinese Evening and proved a useful tool in convincing parents in the audience of the relevance and importance of our link with China. All classes in Year 8 prepared similar speeches and some of these were video recorded and sent to China to be used as a resource in English lessons. We are currently awaiting copies of speeches prepared by pupils in our partner school.
Pupils in China had prepared cards, letters and resources on Chinese New Year that were brought over by the delegation and shared among the UK pupils who had previously provided similar resources on Christmas that were sent to China. The music department provided music and words for traditional Christmas carols and songs that mirrored those being performed in our School Carol Concert and RE department provided resources for English lessons in China on the history, traditions and customs associated with Christmas. A celebration of Christmas was held in our partner school using these resources.
We have found that having a permanent member of staff from our partner school on secondment in our school has been crucial in ensuring joint activities have taken place. It has also been helpful in maintaining regular contact with China. However we feel that without a member of our staff in China it has been difficult to ensure that all planned activities have been taking place in China, particularly considering the strict restraints our Chinese colleagues have with their curriculum.
Having a project exchange trip was an invaluable opportunity to review progress made on this project and plan a new project for the following year. We discussed difficulties of curriculum restraints in China and found that the majority of discussion and project work could take place in English conversation classes, something we had not planned for this project. The trip was partly funded by the British Council through the Joint Curriculum Project funding, partly through our Language College status and pupils taking part also had to contribute to the cost of the flight.
We experienced problems with pupils’ e-mails as these had to go through UK and then Chinese teachers and it was extremely difficult to get through network firewalls. To get around this the pupils simply wrote letters and these were both posted and delivered by hand on the project trips. For next year’s project we are planning to set up a ‘chat room/message board’ on the school internet site.
The project outcomes have been the Christmas and Chinese New Year celebrations; a bi-lingual publication recording the experiences of pupils involved in ‘Festival of Friendship’ and those involved in the project exchange trip. Most importantly, a greater understanding of each other’s language and cultures has been achieved. The children have discovered that they are not so different after all!
With regard to professional development, as co-ordinator of the project I intend to develop the skills gained working on this project to develop new partnerships and joint projects with schools from other countries. My role has grown from Chinese co-ordinator to International co-ordinator. Other staff involved, have had the experience of working on a whole school cross-curricular project and an international team has been set up as a result of this project with plans being made for next year. Being involved in the project has increased motivation and enthusiasm for both staff and pupils involved. One member of the Technology department who had shown particular interest in the project has agreed to spend 6 months on secondment at our partner school in China next year to teach conversational English and help implement next year’s joint curriculum project. All very exciting!
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