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Area Linking Visit to Cape Town
Plymouth has an Area link with South Africa involving 16 schools and during the February half term. Ten Head teachers/teachers from schools in Plymouth visited their partner schools in Cape Town in order to discuss joint curriculum activities and ways to take their partnerships forward. This was funded through the British Council's Area Linking visit and Reciprocal visit funding.
The objectives of the visit were:
Jill Bailey - International Development Officer
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Afritwin Teacher Exchange
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In the picture are Carol Belli(Highfield), |
On 15th September 2008, Pam Fleming from Umhlanga College, Durban and Judy Wearne from Westville Junior Primary School, Durban came to Plymouth for a week as a result of a successful British Council bid for cluster partnership funding for an Afritwin project.
Pam has been the link teacher from Umhlanga College working very successfully with Trish Ellis from Oreston Community Primary School to establish email friendship links with children in their respective schools. Projects including cooking, writing South African/British recipe books, making and sending friendship gifts and exchanging cards on special occasions have led to this teacher exchange which will be reciprocated during February half term.
Judy has worked with Kathryn Palmer and Kim Dorian-Kemp from Highfield Community Primary School on similar projects, which led to the funding application as a cluster partnership. Schools in both countries are now working together and staff from all four schools had a very fruitful week here in Plymouth last autumn.
South African teachers met all members of their school communities (governors, teachers and all staff, including MTAs) and worked with children throughout their schools on ‘A day in the life of a pupil from South Africa'. They spent time with school mediators and attended school council meetings, finding out how pupils are involved in the decision-making and running of their schools. Children discussed the similarities and differences between the schools, discovering how each school could benefit from their partners and also what we could work on in future projects.
Trish and Kim will visit Durban with plans afoot to work with the South Africans on exchanging time-honoured mealtime ideas (food is always very popular!) as well as playground games, activities and traditional children's songs. The four schools will set up a program for the next phase of the project which involves sustainability in our homes and schools - examining ways of reducing our carbon footprints and becoming more eco-friendly.
All Afritwin schools have a third link in their partnership - an ‘undeveloped' school which is situated close to their South African counterpart. During the visit all teachers will visit their partners in these rural schools, further developing links between pupils and teachers for involvement in future projects.
Visiting partner and link schools strengthens relationships between teachers, enthusing them and their pupils to develop and maintain connections with greater understanding and commitment. This has certainly been the case in this British Council funded project.
Trish Ellis, Oreston Community Primary
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Longcause Community Special School hosts its Cape Town Twin School
Tafelberg High School - 24 students, 4 staff, 3 Nights in Plymouth
The faces of both sets of students spoke for themselves as they said goodbye at Longcause School on Tuesday 30th September 2008. The Tafelberg students had to get to Heathrow for an evening flight after spending in an amazingly busy five days in England. The two groups of students had only met the previous morning at Longcause but you could see how they had all enjoyed this global experience.
Back in February half-term two of my colleagues and I visited Tafelberg High School in Cape Town as well as its junior school and our other twin special school, Glendale, with whom we are are planning our next project. The links were forged by Jayne Martin of "Afri Twin" with whom I am in regular contact via email. Tafelberg caters for children with ADHD from infants up to students of 18. Most of their students are of mainstream ability in terms of academic and sporting skills. They were planning to visit the South of England in September with a football team and a rugby team as they did two years previously, before we were twin schools. Could they pop down to Plymouth and visit us? Yes, of course!
Longcause School is for children with communication, speech and language and learning difficulties. Back in the summer term we made a plan of action. We decided to have an "Africa/UK" week in which we collapsed some of the timetable the week before Tafelberg arrived in Plymouth. Our students looked at African topics, experiencing the continent through music, dance, art, drama and real live African animals whilst preparing for a performance for a special assembly on the Monday morning when our visitors would be in school.
September came around and our students and staff really enjoyed "Africa/UK" week. The Tafelberg group landed on Thursday and arrived in Plymouth on the Saturday evening after a whistle-stop tour of London and matches played in Surrey. Using our own minibuses we met the group at their city-centre hotel and took them to Mount Batten for a morning's sailing in the sun. This was made possible by the voluntary tuition given by the staff of Plymouth Youth Sailing and funding from "Friends of Longcause" who also provided a buffet lunch the following day. The sailing was greatly appreciated by the Tafelberg students, few of whom get the chance to sail in South Africa. We all got the ferry across to Plymouth's historic Barbican and the group spent the rest of Sunday exploring, shopping or just chilling out. They were exhausted!
On the Monday morning we drove them in again, but this time to school. The Tafelberg students, many of whom were 17 or 18 years old, received a guided tour of the school and met the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Plymouth who came specially for the assembly. Our students' performances ranged from an updated version of an old story, "Little Red Football Shirt" to dramatised renditions of "Widecombe Fair" and "Yellow Submarine". We persuaded the Tafelberg group to sing the South African national anthem which is in several languages. After break the Tafelberg students were split into small groups to go into class with our secondary pupils. At lunchtime Tafelberg joined our children in the playground. It was wonderful to see - their big lads and two girls playing football and basketball with our students in the sunshine.
Tafelberg also enjoyed playing football, rugby and dodgeball with students from our neighbouring secondary schools, Hele's and Ridgeway, so the international experience extended beyond Longcause School. The whole thing took a lot emailing, phone calls and planning but it was all worthwhile. We are now looking forward to the next project with Glendale but we will keep in touch with Tafelberg and will never forget their visit to our school. We are so glad they came.
Rob Barratt
(International Co-ordinator, Longcause Community Special School)
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Diski Dance - Hurray for the World Cup
Due to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the KS2 children at High View School are enjoying an exciting cultural link with their partner school in Durban, South Africa, as part of the Afri Twin scheme.
Our Year 5s and 6s are studying the theme of Africa during this summer term. This is a fabulous opportunity for them to learn the Diski dance as part of the World Cup games. The focus is on soccer-based moves, you can feel the energy and passion with a lot of rhythm of African football. It's also an easy, fun dance with lots of meaning!
Both schools are learning the moves to the funky music and we are intending to exchange videos in addition to writing letters to our pen pals. We will also show case clips to parents and community members.
Sabine Anker: High View Primary School
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SSAT Study Visit to South Africa
A visit to another country to explore aspects of teaching is always an exciting opportunity and a real privilege. This visit could certainly be deemed to be an experience of a lifetime for the group of 12 primary & secondary teachers from across the city and a Local Authority representative, and provided a significant amount if knowledge about the issues relating to teacher recruitment, newly qualified teacher Induction and the effect of continuing professional development on teacher retention in another country. The aims and objectives of the visit were able to be effectively explored, with learning taking place for teavhers from both South Africa and the UK.
The differences in the schools visited were vast in so many ways, but each one provided opportunities to both enhance and challenge the practice of the group. In particular, the opportunity for quality reflection on current practice was invaluable. This was significantly aided by the close interaction between group members and the cohesion of the group as a team throughout the visit. South Africa has approximately 12.3 million school pupils, some 386,600 teachers and 27,187 schools.
Throughout the visit the group had opportunities to experience a range of schools and were able to gain information relating to all the aims and objectives required. They were also able to attend a seminar about NQTs and speak with staff involved within a wider context than ourley within their own schools. Furthermore, the group spent an afternoon at the University of Pretoria meeting school leaders and those involved in teacher training; the group leader gave a lecture on NQT Induction snd Assessment in Plymouth as part of the afternoon, and the group supported her in an active tutorial following the lecture by leading group discussions with school leaders and teacher trainers.
Discussion with staff from the schools highlighted that some of the issues encompassing NQT recruitment and retention are similar in both the UK and in South Africa. One example of this is the public perception of teaching as a career; for many years teaching has not been considered to be a high level profession and this, in part is due to the level of remuneration for teachers in contrast to other professions. Another example is the difficulty of recruiting a sufficient quantity of people with the appropriate qualifications for training to teach. This was and continues to be especially difficult in certain subjects and is currently an issue in South Africa, as it is in the UK, for Maths and Science teachers, especially Physics and Chemistry; attracting males into primary teahing is also an issue. In South Africa the problem with recruiting suitable people to train has been compounded by the 'point score' to gain entry into teaching being lowered to make it easier to obtain a training place. Whe compared with other professions, the requirements for teaching are now much lower i.e. 24 points for teaching and 30-32 points for occupational therapy, for example.
There were some unexpected learning outcomes as a result of this visit:
i) We had expected teachers in South Africa to be proactive in promoting the profession to the children and young people in their care. Unfortunately, we found that this was not generally the case. Indeed, in many instances the opposite was true; teachers were very vocal in their opposition to promoting teaching as a profession.
ii) Given the variety of strategies introduced in English schools over the past decade, standards in literacy inparticular at primary school level would be significantly above what we expected to see in many of the South African schools. This was not the case in the faith schools and in the private schools that we visited, standards of literacy were often the same as, if not better than in many of our own schools.
iii) We had not fully appreciated the effect of a particular climate on children and young people and their curriculumoffer prior to this visit. The South African climate is undoubtedly a positive factor for those working and living in the country. Specifically, for schools it means that outdoor spaces can be fully utilised to enhance the curriculum and extra curricular offer for children and young people. Additionally, we saw very few obese school children; physical activity is encouraged and regular break times spent outside clearly enhance this situation.
iv) We witnessed a level of aspiration in the children and young people in all of the schools that we visited that was significantly higher to that of our own children and young people. even in the poorest areas, aspirations for the future were high, with many children and young people recognising that a good education was necessary if they were to achieve their aspirations for their futures. Despite teaching being seen as a low level profession by many of the pupils, a good education was still considered as something highly desirable.
Wendy Roderick, Plymouth Local Authority