Section 1 : First thoughts

The features of successful partnerships

Read these excerpts and use your own experience to identify the features of successful learning partnerships.

Diversity, mutual respect and social justice

Common and compatible goals

People to people contact

Find out about successful partnerships

• Read these (descriptions about a range of partnerships)

  Countess Gytha Primary School (UK) and Mufulira Basic School (Zambia)

  Countess Gytha Primary School (UK) and Mufulira Basic School (Zambia)

  Our partnership has been running successfully for the last 7 years through teacher exchanges and development of curriculum projects with global learning topics. These have included "A day in The Life of a Child", "Play and gender issues", "Our village", "Working together through drama and movement" and many more. Through this close contact of learning, pupils from both partner schools develop all areas of understanding as young global citizens of the world. Year 6 (10 year olds) pupils from the UK have been active in a number of national campaigns; Beat Poverty, UNICEF Day for Change, Comic Relief, sharing information and taking responsibility for the organisation of each event. Changes were made to literacy planning in both partner schools to include a variety of methods for delivering stories as a stimulus and by the associated development of the citizenship curriculum through the global outcomes of diversity, interdependence and human rights.

  Terry Bishop, Countess Gytha Primary School

  Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School (England) and Vidya Devi Jindal School (India)

  Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School (England) and Vidya Devi Jindal School (India)

  Our partnership decided to trace our joint cultural heritage from the past into the present and to consider what sort of challenges we might face in the future.

  In Year 8 Citizenship (12–13 year olds) pupils study the issue of stereotyping, but this was new for our Indian partner. Our pupils embarked on the usual programme, involving discussion in pairs, groups and as a whole class, but the joint curriculum project took them a step further. They put together an album of drawings and photographs of themselves dressed as various stereotypical teenagers. This was sent to our partner school, who sent back a similar album for our pupils. The discussion of stereotypes has extended to nationality: how do British teenagers imagine their Indian peers and vice versa? So far the study has shown that, despite significant cultural differences, there are remarkable similarities.

  We have learned that school partnerships can be organic with unpredictable outcomes. Whilst it is always good to have clear aims and objectives, these may be interpreted differently with more exciting outcomes than those first envisaged.

  Global project work also opens up new links at home. Through the project we have developed greater contacts with the local Hindu and Muslim community.

  Hilary Hopwood, Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School

  Dorton House School (England) and Milton Margai School for the Blind (Sierra Leone)

  Dorton House School (England) and Milton Margai School for the Blind (Sierra Leone)

  Milton Margai School was evacuated during the coup in 1997, and was badly damaged during the mayhem of January 1999. What a contrast to the calm, leafy lanes and green open spaces of the small market and commuter town of Sevenoaks and the peaceful campus of the Royal London Society for the Blind with its towering cedar tree and park-like grounds! But this diversity in no way impedes the success of our partnership which continues to flourish and expand with the interest, enthusiasm and commitment of pupils and staff from both schools.

  A compelling Humanities project on the subject of Disability Rights is beginning to emerge following the publication of a story book aimed at Sierra Leone’s mainstream primary children, entitled "John-Abu Goes To School" which addresses and challenges current attitudes towards disability in Sierra Leone. Pupils at Milton Margai School have recorded their reactions to the book and the aim is to ask the pupils of Dorton House School ‘How do you see it?’. Dorton pupils will be invited to create an equivalent story, depicting their perceptions of attitudes towards disability in the UK and considering the disability legislation now in place and its impact on attitudes and perceptions.

  Mary Berg, Dorton House School

  Ravin Lekamwasam (student) Richmond College, Sri Lanka partnered with Easingwold School, UK

  When I started (being involved in this partnership programme) I didn’t think there were benefits for us. But now I can say that I have learned to think more deeply and to resolve problems by thinking more to the future than present because some people think that they give resolutions which are short-term but would not help in the future.

  This partnership has also helped us to link with our own schools in our country, which has helped to bring a bond between all of us. And I think that will be very, very useful for the future of our country, for the future of us and the future of our whole world.

  By seeing things and learning more we can see that conflict resolution and diversity can be very useful for us. And I must add that all this will lead to one conclusion– no wars but making this whole world a global village. This would help a lot of countries because sometimes the world is pretty much separated like continents, states and different ethnic groups. But if we get together we could like take care of all the problems like global warming, terrorism, energy crisis. And if we can get rid of and challenge these, we could do a better world and I think if we could do this the world would be safer.

  Ravin Lekamwasam, Richmond College, Sri Lanka

  Just Linking Project – UK-to-UK school partnerships

  Just Linking Project

  The Just Linking Project linked mostly white rural schools with inner-city multicultural ones in England.

  In one inner-city Leeds school which is truly multicultural a teacher identified a benefit of their link with an all-white rural school. It provided an opportunity to challenge the urban children’s preconceptions that all white schools are racist. The children simply had not realised that some areas don’t have multicultural communities and had assumed that the children in those schools were racist. The link brought out this assumption which had not been visible before. Several of the British Pakistani children from an inner-city linking school were worried before meeting the children in their rural link school that they would not be able to understand the rural children’s accents. However when they did meet they found they had no difficulty understanding one another.

  In our experience the opportunity to challenge prejudice and assumptions has been valuable for both urban and rural partner schools. It seems so obvious, but a lesson that we’re learning in the Just Linking project is that rural white cultures make a distinct contribution to multicultural Britain which should command respect in the same way as ethnicity and religion.

  Another benefit for the urban schools has been the opportunity to experience country life. For many urban children access to the country is limited by the family’s lack of transport and confidence in exploring the countryside. Some of the children had not seen wildlife or farm animals in Britain and were amazed at their size.

  This experience of the countryside has had hidden benefits, such as the smell of country locations, which can be used to extend children’s writing (one boy commented on getting off the coach, “It smells just like Pakistan!”)

  From Yorkshire & Humber Global Schools Association (HYGSA) News Issue 5. Link to website see details below

• Watch this video (about two school partnerships)