Archives for October 2011

Community Development Officer Michael Cox from Bedford Academy blogs about his school's partnership with Bishop Okiring in Kenya.

Michael travelled to Kenya with two students to meet his partner school in July 2011. The story of their journey aired on the BBC News Channel on 22 October and can be watched on the World Class website. 

One of my favourite projects we have undertaken together is a project called 'Send my Sister to School'. 

This was particularly pleasing to me as it was entirely student led by our 6th form at Bedford Academy. The campaign is put together by Global Campaign for Education and allows students to take the lead to promote awareness of female education within their own school and the surrounding community. Our students produced a video and a banner and organised a meeting with our local MP. I took the banner to Bishop Okiring with me to share the campaign as Mr Okadie is very passionate about female education. Every student at Bishop Okiring signed the banner as did staff. This became a powerful symbol for the project as it showed directly the impact of education to both boys and girls from an economically challenged community.

When I met Mr Okadie in London at the World Olympic Dreams conference I promised him I would try and learn Swahili. I am fortunate in the fact that Bedford is one of the most multi-cultural towns in the UK and we have several students from East Africa who speak Swahili who have been able to help me learn. I delivered a speech in Swahili to the gathered students, staff and community when I visited Bishop Okiring and the feedback was fantastic. This inspired me to learn more and to pass it on to my students. We now devote part of our International Schools enrichment directly to learning Swahili and all the students who attend love learning it!

When I visited Bishop Okiring Mr Okadie told me the importance of learning English to his students. Most students first language is their local dialect and therefore English can be difficult. Bishop Okiring students have big dreams and aspirations, most of which will require a grasp of English. He told me that our visit will inspire his students to learn more English and that working with our School will push them all with their studies. We have started to achieve this through regular student contact and hope to continue with phone calls, emails and hopefully through SKYPE. A prime example of the success of this partnership is Kenyan student Eglah, whose English has improved fantastically since her visit to Bedford Academy!

A high point of my visit to Bishop Okiring was the exchange of our culture boxes! These contained 10 items of local or national significance to our respective cultures. It was very interesting to see the difference in the items and how they were used in everyday life. Each culture box included a 'mystery' item which each School had to guess. Bedford Academy’s mystery item was an egg cup which completely baffled staff and students alike! It was interesting to see that all Bishop Okiring items were hand-made and very practical where our items were mainly plastic and slightly frivolous!

Another curriculum project we did this year was fairtrade. Each school made a video to intrroduce their thoughts on Fairtrade and what it means to them. The videos have since been exchanged and will be used to promote Fairtrade across the Academy for Fairtrade Fortnight/World Fairtrade day 2012.

Michael Cox

Community Development Leader

Bedford Academy

Zambian school pupils have visited the Lukanga Swamp region to investigate acccess to water and sanitation.

The schools, known as the "Broken Hill Cluster", found conditions were poor as shown in their photo of a typical toilet, which is used by many families.

“I couldn’t believe that there are still some people that are living a primitive way of life," said Francis of Bwacha High School. "They don’t mind what kind of water they are drinking, using for household activities such as bathing, laundry and cooking.”

Twenty four pupils and eight teachers from Bwacha High School, Nkwashi Basic School, Kabwe High School, Neem Tree Basic School, St Mary’s Basic School and Mukobeko Basic School interviewed local people in order as research for a documentary film.

Pupils also shared information about the importance of clean drinking water with families, and visited the local health centre to talk to medical staff.

Katete Isaac, Teacher at Nkwashi Basic School said: “The children for the first time were exposed to activities which can bring positive change both to local people and pupils.”

The Zambian schools are linked to schools in Tanzania and the UK through the British Council's Connecting Classrooms programme.

The schools in Zambia and Tanzania chose to focus their work on water and sanitation because it is a widespread problem.

The visit to Lukanga Swamp took place to mark World Tourism Day.

Redruth Technology College teacher, Craig Bonds blogs for World Class about their visit to their partner school in Russia which featured this morning on Breakfast on BBC One.

"Redruth School is buzzing after hearing about our trip to Russia.

Headteacher Craig Martin, Head of PE Craig Bonds, along with pupils Louise and Amy, had a life changing experience with our partner school College of Olympic Reserve Number 1 in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Our school has been intrigued about what life is like for a pupil at the Olympic Reserve, and more generally about life in Russia. Pupils have learned about a sporting culture very different to our own.

The comparison in approaches to education and sport will carry on for some time and there is no doubt that this project will influence a range of future developments at Redruth School.

Redruth and the Olympic Reserve have forged a tremendous link. We want pupils from both schools to share information about their education and culture.

There are discussions taking place about future trips to each of the schools, along with both schools engaging in activities for the London 2012 games.

Sport has brought our schools together and the World Class project has given a rural school like Redruth an unbelievable link with an iconic Russian Olympic school."

The schools were linked by the British Council and BBC World Class.

Teacher Katie Parks from Colegrave Primary School in east London emailed World Class to let us know how they are twinning for 2012:

“We are all very excited about London 2012 at our school – we are the closest primary school to the Olympic Village and can see them building it from our playground!”

Pupils in year 3 are linked with Derara Elementary School in Ethiopia through BBC World Class partners Link Ethiopia.

Letters to the students there from Colegrave are now in the post. One Colegrave pupil said: "Our link with Derara Elementary School is so interesting. I have written to my pen pal, I would like him to be my friend. I am learning, and my friend is learning too."

Colegrave has made local, regional and international links across the school with an Olympic theme. Here is a flavour of what each year is up to…

Pupils in foundation stage are in the process of linking with a primary school in Sydney, Australia.

 Year 1 students are in the second year of a link with a school in Atlanta last year and wrote letters, group emails and sent photographs to the school.

Year 4 have made a local link and will be working on researching Stratford to create a visitor leaflet for the 2012 Olympic/Paralympic games.

Year 5 have made a regional link with a school in Darton Primary in Barnsley as part of the Newham-Barnsley Partnership –developed in preparation for London 2012.

And Year 6 have been set a challenge to make their own international link and are currently deciding what they'd like to do.

It sounds like Colegrave Primary have been hit with Olympic fever! Nice work!