report on isa portfolio short version

8/14/2019 Report on ISA Portfolio Short Version

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William Hulme's Grammar SchoolReport on the Portfolio which we recently submitted for theInternational Schools Award 2009-12.

John Hofton, International Director

Background:

Since being appointed to the post of International Director , I have workedwith the Headmaster, Senior Staff, subject teachers and pupils to ensure thatinternationalism is embedded within the school curriculum across the wholeage range. One of the first things I did to raise the profile of internationalismwas, with the Principal, Mr Peter Mulholland, create an international policy for the school and then ensure that year on year our main developments wereincluded in the school development plans and SEF. The first thing I did was toproduce an audit of all the international activities and / or connections we hadamongst the staff. From this I was able to draw up an action plan of what weas school would be doing which had the global dimension included in it. Sincethat time we have twice been awarded the International Schools Award: 2006-9, 2009-12 (both portfolios contained some twenty main international activitieswith pupil evaluation and teacher evaluation.) Our global outlook has

expanded: we have had school links with El Salvador, France, Germany,Switzerland, and more recently with India and Brazil. Some of these linkshave been in the form of pupil exchanges, teacher exchanges and also emaillinks, and pupils’ work uploaded to our VLE. This has raised the profile of internationalism within the school. The results of last year’s audit and actionplan prove conclusively that internationalism is fully embedded within thecurriculum of all subjects: even Maths had its own international project lastyear, as this comment by one of the Maths teachers shows: ‘Pupils were veryexcited and enthusiastic when choosing a country to investigate and I wasimpressed by the variety of countries they came up with. The pupils werecertainly happy to think of mathematics in a global context.’



The following are examples of some of the work done in our school whichreflects the fact that the entire staff have been involved in our internationalwork (comments are from the teachers involved):

English: ‘the activity has allowed a wider appreciation of our students’ cultural

backgrounds’

Bilingual poster and Famous scientist project: Biology : This work wasdisplayed around school to show how the specialisms of MFL and Science areworking together. ‘Pupils enjoyed the novelty of using their foreign languagesin a science lesson. All the staff involved in this project commented on theenthusiasm of the pupils and the quality of their work.’

Teach a Friend a Language project : -Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, Dari, Pashto,Gujarati, Finnish, Dutch, British Sign Language, Russian- pupils of minoritylanguage backgrounds met and shared their language and culture with others.Has promoted the importance of being a global citizen..

Maths international project: they investigated: India, Jamaica, Canada,Brazil, Japan etc. Pupils compared relative cost of buying a games console invarious countries.

R.S.: Buddhism project: ‘A number of pupils also presented their projects inreligious assembly, therefore disseminating their newly acquired knowledge toothers.’

Spanish project on Spanish speaking countries done by year 7 pupilsworking towards a PLTS inititiative.

French project on world citizenship.

All year 7 pupils were involved in a project to promote their awareness of Chinese culture during Chinese New Year.

FLAGS – Manchester University 6 students studied Linguistics on-line. Cross-curricular link with English.

‘Ecritures en partage’ : A sixth form pupil at our school had a bi-lingualarticle published by an association based in Brest which organizes the ‘Fêtedes langues du Monde’

Main school assembly on Barack Obama’s inauguration speech : theassembly focused on how his messages were both international andapplicable to our school. Year 9 assembly on Gambia.

Work which has been specifically centred on our international linkschools:



Our year 9 pupils were involved in exchanging correspondence via Email withtwo German speaking schools. One of our German teachers has personalcontact with the German school as her mother teaches there; she wasdelighted because ‘the pupils were able to use their language skills and it alsogave them an insight into the lives of children in other countries and it allowed

us to establish a working relationship with another school in Germany.’ Wehave been in partnership with TocH school, Cochin, Kerala, India for twoyears. Our pupils have exchanged emails, answered questionnaires, donesurveys, including one on the China / Tibet issue during the Chinese olympicgames, using the Promethean hand-held devices (Active Expression.) Thetwo schools have also exchanged short video clips on their relevant schools.They have also been involced in a science project on the environment;comparison of the culture and religions practised by the pupils of bothschools. We also did a joint project on citizenship: during one of their PSHElessons a group of our year 7 pupils prepared posters on the theme: ‘Whatdoes it mean to me to be a British Citizen’; they interviewed one another andrecorded their interviews on this theme on Mp3 files. The two schools havealso exchanged data and information on the theme of global warming andenvironmental issues, renewable sources of energy. For example, our ‘Eco-Warriors’ sent examples of the work they had done during the year in schoolto promote Eco principles into the heart of school life and for which they hadwon a bronze award. One of our pupils filmed her family at her local Sikhtemple which was sent to TocH school; their pupils reciprocated by sending uspictures of one of their local gurudwaras.

International Partner Schools:

Siemens Gymnasium, Germany and with the Oberstufenschule,

Wadenswil, Switzerland.

Mrs Hilary Sackfield, Head of MFL Specialism

60 of our year 9 pupils were involved in exchanging correspondence via Emailand by normal Post with these two German speaking schools. Our pupils

prepared initial poster style letters, detailing personal characteristics anddetails about their family members, which they sent via email. They werethrilled to receive their personal replies and contacted their partnersimmediately. Year 9 were very proud of their new friends and soon spreadword through the school. This has encouraged others to get involved in pen-friend links. One pupil said: ‘I liked meeting a new friend from another countryand staying in touch with another culture. I have learned about another cultureand way of life in Germany.

One of our German teachers, Mrs Franziska Preston , has personal contactwith the German school as her mother teaches there; she was delighted

because ‘the pupils were able to use their language skills and it also gave



them an insight into the lives of children in other countries and it allowed us toestablish a working relationship with another school in Germany.’

TocH Public School, Vyttila, Kochi, Kerala, India

Mr John Hofton, International Director

We have been in partnership with TocH school, Cochin, Kerala, India for twoyears. It is a large school whose pupils are aged from 3 to 18. Our pupils haveexchanged emails, answered questionnaires, done surveys, including one onthe China / Tibet issue during the Chinese olympic games, using thePromethean hand-held devices (Active Expression.) The two schools havealso exchanged short video clips on their relevant schools. We have involvedour pupils at both schools in the following projects: a science project on theenvironment; comparison of the culture and religions practised by the pupils of both schools. We also did a joint project on citizenship: during one of their PSHE lessons a group of our year 7 pupils prepared posters on the theme:‘What does it mean to me to be a British Citizen’; they interviewed oneanother and recorded their interviews on this theme on Mp3 files. Copies of this work was sent to TocH school who reciprocated by sending us examplesof their work on a similar theme: ‘What does it mean to be an Indian Citizen’.(They also sent us photos of the children who had produced the work.) Thetwo schools have also exchanged data and information on the theme of globalwarming and environmental issues, such as pollution management andrenewable sources of energy. For example, our ‘ Eco-Warriors’ (organized byDr. Aurora Gutierrez-Sosa ) sent examples of the work they had done duringthe year in school to promote Eco principles into the heart of school life andfor which they had won a bronze award. One of our pupils filmed her family ather local Sikh temple which was sent to TocH school; their pupils reciprocatedby sending us pictures of one of their local gurudwaras and of some of their local Sikhs. They told us all about the status of the Sikh religion in Kerala, asa minority religion. One of the facts about TocH school that our pupils weresurprised to learn was that the school has mainly Christian children and thattheir lessons are conducted in English. The pupils discovered that they hadcertain things in common: for example, both schools are for pupils aged

between 3 and 18 and both have a House system. Thanks to a DFID teacher exchange bursary one of their teachers will visit us in September and one of our teachers will be going out to visit them in October, 2009, in order to makelong term plans for joint co-operation between the pupils of both schools.

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