Experiencing other cultures and traditions undoubtedly helps young people to understand the world that they live in.
It helps to reinforce societal values around respect and tolerance, and encourage growing minds to celebrate difference, broaden their horizons and understand global issues.
Living through this pandemic means that children around the world are experiencing disruptions to their education at the same time. Connections and understanding have never been more important.
However, a recent survey by Tes and the British Council found that UK teachers were concerned about the lack of international opportunities in their schools.
Of the 2,220 teachers surveyed, just 37 per cent felt that their pupils had a good understanding of cultures other than their own, while more than half said that pupils’ interest in modern foreign languages was declining in their school.
Meanwhile, a third of respondents predicted that pupils in their school would never go on a school trip abroad, and a quarter said theirs were likely to experience just one international school trip.
So how can schools bring global learning into the classroom to help broaden the horizons of all pupils? One effective way is through creating international partnerships.
Bilingual buddies
In 2014, a group of schools in Wales including Glan-y-Môr School and Richmond Park Primary School partnered with Lesotho schools Mokhotlong Primary School and Moyeni High School. Some of the schools are bilingual and faced the similar situation of promoting bilingualism in order to be part of both the local community and the national one.
At the start of the partnership, teachers from Wales went to visit Mokhotlong Primary and took with them handwritten letters from the Welsh students.
Excited by this opportunity to connect with pupils in another country, all 97 pupils from Mokhotlong had their handwritten reply ready on their teacher’s desk by the next morning.
As part of the project, students in both schools discussed global issues, such as the right to quality education, enabling them to contextualise their experiences of languages (and other things) as part of a much bigger world.
“The thing that surprised me was how similar their school was to ours,” one of the Welsh students reflected.
Angélique Perrault, cluster international co-ordinator for Glan-y-Môr School, says: “This is the world in your classroom. It fits in extremely well with our goal of empowering students to become better citizens of the world.”
Social enterprise skills
International partnerships can also be a great way to empower pupils to develop and share skills that they can take with them into the world of work.
The international partnership between National Star College in Gloucestershire, UK, and Joyland Special Secondary School in Kisumu, Kenya, for example, sees pupils with disabilities discussing and comparing cultural attitudes around having a disability, and running a social enterprise project in which they create, trade and sell each other’s crafts in their own communities.
The partnership started in 1997 and is still running to this day. Pupils write letters to each other and connect with their peers at the partner school through video conferencing via a webcam.
Pupils learn about the cultural crafts being made and about the lives of their partner students. They use this knowledge to create information boards, which they display in their pop-up shops.
In Joyland School, pupils are taught local crafts such as sewing and needlework, where they make bags and jewellery from recycled materials. At National Star College, they focus on making printed materials, such as greetings cards, mobile phone cases and T-shirts.
David Finch is director of international development and research at National Star College and says the project brings the twofold benefits of increasing both cultural understanding and empowerment for traditionally marginalised groups.
“It is important for both partners that students with disabilities have opportunities to work with their peers from different cultures and open up the world to them,” he says.
The college also arranges staff exchanges so that UK teachers can attend specific lessons in Kisumu around personal development and life skills. During these visits, teachers “learn to adapt, be flexible and resourceful in their approaches,” Finch says.
A teacher who visited Joyland School in 2019 said: “It’s been a life-changing experience for me. It has changed the way I look at my teaching. I certainly was outside of my comfort zone.”
Deeper thinking
Stephen Ellis, a British Council schools ambassador, highlights the fact that international partnerships offer opportunities to develop myriad transferable skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, digital literacy, creativity, citizenship and communication.
For example, when focusing on a global topic such as climate change, pupils can engage in discussions that require a deeper level of thinking - debating the negatives as well as the potential positives of deforestation, for example, and the impact this has on different environments and groups of people.
“International partnerships between schools see pupils and teachers from different cultures and faiths sharing their learning on global issues with such pride and joy. These projects encourage pupils to have a voice, and to know that they can make a difference,” Ellis says.
But what makes an effective partnership?
Here are five key things for schools to consider when creating an effective international partnership:
1. Benefits for all
When choosing a school (or cluster of schools) to partner with, it’s important to make sure that all those involved will benefit - and that it is sustainable. When choosing a partner, have clear goals and outcomes in mind.
The most successful partnerships are delivered through a whole-school approach, rather than it being one person’s responsibility.
It’s helpful to set up a partnership agreement that clearly sets out your expectations of the partnership, the outcomes you want to achieve and the roles and responsibilities of each partner.
2. Support services
Use the support services available to develop the most suitable partnership for your school. Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning is a programme funded by the British Council and UK aid and is free and open to all schools in the UK.
It can help you choose a suitable international partner, find other UK schools to collaborate with and help plan resources and meetings, as well as providing free training for teachers and leaders on how to deliver global learning and access to a local adviser for support on how to deliver the project.
Schools can also apply for a grant to enable teachers to visit their international partner school. Reciprocal visits are a helpful way for teachers to make a connection with the staff they’ll be working with and develop their project on global issues.
3. Curriculum links
The best international partnerships aren’t an addition to the curriculum, but part of it. A great way to do this is to use the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals to develop a meaningful global project that feeds into different areas of the curriculum. Some examples of projects schools have worked on include making seats and tables from recycled materials, and setting up a food bank.
4. Communication
Good communication is key to making a partnership a success. There are numerous ways that pupils and staff can engage and work with their partner school, including through Google Classroom, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, FaceTime and Skype (between classes or teachers).
To work around time zones, schools can create videos to introduce themselves, or send pictures of their work.
5. Celebration
Increase engagement in the project and celebrate what pupils and staff have learned through putting on events.
These may include events to share learning with the school’s local community (or other cluster schools), culture-themed days, whole-school assemblies, inviting guests to visit the school, or providing opportunities during enrichment week. Schools that participate in partnerships can also apply for accreditation through the International School Award.
