William Hulme's Grammar School

Report on the Portfolio which we recently submitted for the

International Schools Award 2009-12.

John Hofton, International Director

Background:

Since being appointed to the post of International Director, I have worked

with the Headmaster, Senior Staff, subject teachers and pupils to ensure that
internationalism is embedded within the school curriculum across the whole
age range. One of the first things I did to raise the profile of internationalism
was, with the Principal, Mr Peter Mulholland, create an international policy for
the school and then ensure that year on year our main developments were
included in the school development plans and SEF. The first thing I did was to
produce an audit of all the international activities and / or connections we had
amongst the staff. From this I was able to draw up an action plan of what we
as school would be doing which had the global dimension included in it. Since
that time we have twice been awarded the International Schools Award: 2006-
9, 2009-12 (both portfolios contained some twenty main international activities
with 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 links
have been in the form of pupil exchanges, teacher exchanges and also email
links, 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 action
plan prove conclusively that internationalism is fully embedded within the
curriculum of all subjects: even Maths had its own international project last
year, as this comment by one of the Maths teachers shows: ‘Pupils were very
excited and enthusiastic when choosing a country to investigate and I was
impressed by the variety of countries they came up with. The pupils were
certainly happy to think of mathematics in a global context.’
The following are examples of some of the work done in our school which
reflects the fact that the entire staff have been involved in our international
work (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 was
displayed around school to show how the specialisms of MFL and Science are
working together. ‘Pupils enjoyed the novelty of using their foreign languages
in a science lesson. All the staff involved in this project commented on the
enthusiasm 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 minority
language 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 in
various countries.

R.S.: Buddhism project: ‘A number of pupils also presented their projects in

religious assembly, therefore disseminating their newly acquired knowledge to
others.’

Spanish project on Spanish speaking countries done by year 7 pupils

working 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-lingual

article published by an association based in Brest which organizes the ‘Fête
des langues du Monde’

Main school assembly on Barack Obama’s inauguration speech: the

assembly focused on how his messages were both international and
applicable to our school. Year 9 assembly on Gambia.

Work which has been specifically centred on our international link

schools:
Our year 9 pupils were involved in exchanging correspondence via Email with
two German speaking schools. One of our German teachers has personal
contact with 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 to establish a working relationship with another school in Germany.’ We
have been in partnership with TocH school, Cochin, Kerala, India for two
years. Our pupils have exchanged emails, answered questionnaires, done
surveys, including one on the China / Tibet issue during the Chinese olympic
games, using the Promethean hand-held devices (Active Expression.) The
two 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 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 one another and
recorded their interviews on this theme on Mp3 files. The two schools have
also exchanged data and information on the theme of global warming and
environmental issues, renewable sources of energy. For example, our ‘Eco-
Warriors’ sent examples of the work they had done during the year in school
to promote Eco principles into the heart of school life and for which they had
won a bronze award. One of our pupils filmed her family at her local Sikh
temple which was sent to TocH school; their pupils reciprocated by sending us
pictures 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 Email

and by normal Post with these two German speaking schools. Our pupils
prepared initial poster style letters, detailing personal characteristics and
details about their family members, which they sent via email. They were
thrilled to receive their personal replies and contacted their partners
immediately. Year 9 were very proud of their new friends and soon spread
word 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 country
and staying in touch with another culture. I have learned about another culture
and way of life in Germany.

One of our German teachers, Mrs Franziska Preston, has personal contact
with 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 to
establish 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 two
years. It is a large school whose pupils are aged from 3 to 18. Our pupils have
exchanged emails, answered questionnaires, done surveys, including one on
the China / Tibet issue during the Chinese olympic games, using the
Promethean hand-held devices (Active Expression.) The two schools have
also exchanged short video clips on their relevant schools. We have involved
our pupils at both schools in the following projects: a science project on the
environment; 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 one
another and recorded their interviews on this theme on Mp3 files. Copies of
this work was sent to TocH school who reciprocated by sending us examples
of 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.) The
two schools have also exchanged data and information on the theme of global
warming and environmental issues, such as pollution management and
renewable sources of energy. For example, our ‘Eco-Warriors’ (organized by
Dr. Aurora Gutierrez-Sosa) sent examples of the work they had done during
the year in school to promote Eco principles into the heart of school life and
for which they had won a bronze award. One of our pupils filmed her family at
her local Sikh temple which was sent to TocH school; their pupils reciprocated
by 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, as
a minority religion. One of the facts about TocH school that our pupils were
surprised to learn was that the school has mainly Christian children and that
their lessons are conducted in English. The pupils discovered that they had
certain 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 make
long term plans for joint co-operation between the pupils of both schools.