Loreto School Sealdah
In April 2006 during a stay in Kolkata contact was made with the British Council regarding a link with a school keen to develop a partnership with Blessed Mother Teresa's; two schools, St James' School for boys and the Loreto School Sealdah for girls were eager to become involved. While visiting both schools time was spent meeting key staff and planning how we intended to develop the links we were making in order to benefit all our pupils.
After returning to the UK an 'Images of India' Week was organized for the summer term involving the whole school in activities relating to Indian culture and geography and following the event some of the children's work and photographs were forwarded to our two link schools in Kolkata.
In September 2006 St James' school contacted us asking if we would be prepared to apply for a Reciprocal Visit grant from the DFID (Department for International Development) through the British Council. This was something we had considered and after many emails back and forth the deadline was met and in late December 2006 a successful application was confirmed by the British Council.
In September 2006 St James' school contacted us asking if we would be prepared to apply for a Reciprocal Visit grant from the DFID (Department for International Development) through the British Council. This was something we had considered and after many emails back and forth the deadline was met and in late December 2006 a successful application was confirmed by the British Council.
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Three staff members plus the Vice Chair of governors visited St James' School, Kolkata in February 2007; we were made to feel very welcome and our many experiences included observing classes, speaking in assemblies to the Junior school and the Senior school, meeting children, staff, governors, parents, representatives from the British Council and the local press. Part of the criteria for the grant required us to share curricular planning and ideas for sustaining the partnership which needed to be related to Global Dimension themes; bearing this in mind we met with St James' Junior school staff and agreed we would initially focus our joint themes on recycling.
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Our new friends from St James's school made their visit to us in early July; the children were very excited about the visit as they were able to put faces to names they had heard about and have their many questions about Indian life and culture answered. The visitor's week was spent in a similar way to our experience, observing classes, working with small groups of children, planning joint recycling themes with staff and also meeting governors and parishioners from our school community.
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St James' Public School (1700 pupils 4-18yrs) is very different to Blessed Mother Teresa's (140 pupils 4-11yrs) they follow formal teaching methods partly because of the 45-50 pupils in their classes, but even though our schools have diverse teaching styles the reciprocal visits were a great success as we had such a lot to learn from each other both professionally and personally.
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The next stage for both schools now is to continue our joint recycling focus for this academic year and then in 2008/09 to apply to the DFID through the British Council for a three year Curriculum Project Grant to enable further development of our partnership link and to give other members of staff an opportunity for such an extraordinary experience.
How it all began
Find out how our international link with St. James' School came about - click here to read more...
How it all began
Find out how our international link with St. James' School came about - click here to read more...
