Maurice Flynn describes how St Joseph's brought the international dimension into the life of the school.  

St. Joseph’s International Journey began in September 2003 when we made initial contact with the 8th School of Preveza in Greece. This was the co-ordinating school for “Our Culture @ Our Europe”, an inter-cultural project which focused upon the similarities and celebrated the differences between seven partner schools from Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary and Wales. The schools exchanged information via “snail mail” and the internet, and we organised several very successful video-conferences which allowed the children to speak to each other. The Comenius Display Board contained a wealth of information about our partner schools and each time that staff visited one of them for a meeting, Dewi Dragon, our mascot brought back goodies from that country for the children to share. One notable highlight of that particular project was the Evaluation Meeting held in Penarth in April 2005, when we welcomed 20 teachers from the six countries into our school. The experience was wonderful for children and staff, and firmly convinced us of the value of fostering links with our European neighbours.

Once “Our Culture @ Our Europe” was completed, we decided to wait for a year before embarking upon another Comenius Project. In the meantime, however, we formed links with Assumption Catholic School in Lesotho. Godfrey Kakande from Teyateyaneng Academy has visited us on several occasions and received and delivered gifts for the two schools to share. We were also very pleased to be one of only 15 schools in Wales to receive the full International School Award in 2007.

Following the attendance of two staff at a Comenius Contact Seminar in Budapest in November 2007, St. Joseph’s agreed to become the co-ordinating school for “Global Greenies”, a project which focuses upon organic gardening, recycling and healthy lifestyle. We have six partners again, from England, France, two from Ireland, Hungary and the 4th School of Preveza in Greece! The project is in its second and final year, and so far we have held video-conferences, celebrated European Day and European Day of Languages and produced a joint Recipe Book. You can see more of our work on the “Greenies” website, http://www.globalgreenies.com/.

Last year we hosted, Julia Kulcsar, a Comenius Assistant from Budapest from February to July. Julia was an accomplished linguist, and apart from Hungarian, English, Spanish, and Finnish, she began learning Welsh during her stay in Penarth! Julia taught the Junior children conversational Spanish to complement the conversational French that our children have experienced for many years. We are hosting another Comenius Assistant until the end of January 2010, Sylwia Katarzyna Olkowska from Ostroleka in the north-east of Poland. Katie as she prefers to be known is taking a sabbatical from her teacher training to improve her English, and to teach our older children some Polish!

We believe that the International Dimension of Education and Global Citizenship is now very well-embedded at St. Joseph’s. We have even used the opportunity which the Foundation Phase and the new National Curriculum Orders for Wales afforded to introduce the International Primary Curriculum. This is an internationally-minded, thematic, cross-curricular, rigorous teaching structure used by 730 schools in 52 countries with 32 in Wales. It not only enhances key and basic skills, but also has an International component which allows our children to broaden their knowledge and understanding of other countries, cultures and languages.