Prudhoe Community High School and Gymnasium Julianum, Germany

Prudhoe Community High School is a secondary school (13-18) with 1080 pupils. It has specialist status as a Technology College.

Details of the partner school

Gymnasium Julianum, Helmstedt, Germany is a grammar school (10-19) with 950 pupils.

When did the partnership start?  How was the partner school located?

The link started three years ago in 2003 with email contacts between students but the link co-ordinators had been in touch for 20 years.

Case Study of a particular activity or all joint activities to date

• The schools have had a cross curricular project for 3 years – Performing Arts, Music, Technology.  Students from years 12 and 13 (up to 40 in number) visit each other’s schools
• Each time we worked with a Class 11 in Germany whose English was excellent – our students don’t begin German until Year 9
• In 2005 the German students learned dance and drama and we added scenes to a play our students had already performed in England. This year German students acted, filmed and composed music for 3 films which were edited and shown to parents one evening in school. Important benefits – making friends, cultural interchange, our students doing some teaching and gaining confidence, English and German students practising language or in some cases learning bits of a language they have never learnt
• We gathered together written comments from all the students
• The funding was party through the British Council Anglo-German scheme plus fund-raising by students through film nights, battle of the bands and community performances (it was a very small student contribution)
• Each year we have made a DVD – last year of the play being performed with extra scenes, this year three films were made and edited with background music composed by students
• The staff gained a lot through seeing how another school functions.
• The Heads of both schools feel that the project brings positive publicity!

Other information

The partnership started out in the first year as a project to turn our performing arts department into a touring theatre company – with lighting rigs, props etc and all that entails. This has developed into a much more worthwhile event with more student involvement especially of the German students. They give up their Sundays to work with our students on the project and many email friendships have been established.  In the summer of 2005 and for the first time two students (one English, one German) are doing a ‘private’ exchange as a result of being introduced by the project. As the English ‘language’ students this year did not have a big role to play during the day as they did not act in the films we tried for the first time organising work experience (we were only there for four working days) which was a great success and greatly increased the confidence of our students both in speaking German but especially in hearing German spoken.