International Cookridge
“Bringing the world into Cookridge Primary School and Cookridge Primary School out into the world”
View our International Blog here
Accreditations:
International School Award (2012-15)
Etwinning Award (2012)
Full International School Award status (2009-2012)
HSBC Link2Learn Primary School commended (2009-2010)
HSBC Link2Learn International co-ordinator award (2010-2011)
Our children from Saudi Arabia performing during International Day
There are frequent opportunities to celebrate our similarities and differences here at Cookridge as we encourage all our children to develop an understanding of their own and others’ cultures, beliefs, language and experiences.
We are very fortunate to have pupils from many different cultures in school and we look to them to share their knowledge and experiences with the rest of the school and beyond.
Our partnership working with other schools (locally and internationally) further helps us to gain a sense of ourselves and others’, increases our awareness of global issues and nurtures a genuine connection with children across the globe.
The many faces of Cookridge
Aims:
- To increase understanding of global issues, to recognise our own responsibilities as citizens of the world and to address the issues raised;
- To explore our own and each others’ cultural experiences and thereby widen knowledge and understanding and to raise self confidence and self esteem;
- To develop empathy for others in a celebration of cultural variety and richness;
- To avoid and challenge misleading and negative stereotyping.
Six secrets to our international success:
Enthuse, create, motivate, collaborate, challenge and communicate!
Impact
Through our international work, our children learn to be creative, confident and ask questions. They recognise their rights and responsibilities and are aware of their own identity. Working together with other children in different places gives learning a real purpose.
At Cookridge Primary School we believe that education plays a vital role in helping children recognise their responsibilities as citizens of the global community. Global issues are part of children's lives in ways that are very different from when we were children. Television, the Internet, international sport and increased opportunities for travel all bring the wider world into everyone's daily life. Our society today is enhanced by people, cultures, languages, religions, art, technologies, music and literature originating in many different parts of the world. By including the global dimension in our curriculum, links can easily be made between local and global issues, from climate change to poverty, pollution to fair trade, so that children can:
- appreciate the similarities between people everywhere, and learn to value diversity
- understand the global context of their local lives.
- develop skills that will enable them to combat injustice, prejudice and discrimination.
Children from our partner school in Mexico giving a presentation on conservation
International and Funded Projects
- Connecting Classrooms ‘Ubunye’ partnership Nigeria/South Africa/Leeds (- April 2011)
- Global Schools Project with Colegio Esperanza, Tlaxcala, Mexico (- August 2012)
- European Comenius multilateral project (- July 2013) with schools in Birmingham, Spain, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Finland and Ireland
- Comenius Regio authority link Malaga (-July 2011)
Our Approach
- Teaching and learning- global and international dimensions
- Working with partner schools
- The 8 key concepts and internationalism embedded across the curriculum
- Whole school and community events
- Curriculum based collaborative activity and funded opportunities
- Professional development
- Teaching a modern foreign language – Spanish
- Language and cultural learning
- Native speakers and visitors into school
Pupils in our partner school in South Africa
The ability to understand and communicate in other languages is increasingly important in our society and the global economy. Languages contribute to the cultural and linguistic richness of our society, to personal fulfilment, mutual understanding, commercial success and international trade and global citizenship. Because we believe in providing an opportunity for early language development in order to harness children's learning potential we teach Spanish to all children.
In Reception and Key Stage 1 we provide plenty of opportunities for the children to listen, speak and interact orally, listening to the teacher, to songs and rhymes, to each other, to native speakers, to recorded and on-line speech and songs and to recognise familiar and unfamiliar sounds. In Key Stage 2, oracy skills are extended to engaging in conversations to obtain and provide information and exchange opinions and giving presentations to an audience.
Cookridge teachers in Mexico
During recent years, our International highlights have included:
- Partnership work with Ireland Wood, Iveson Primary and schools in Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa.
- Visitors from around the world…from Indian and Norwegian teachers to children from Paraguay!
- Our African and Mexican colleagues have worked in school and we have had a month long visit by two Spanish student teachers.
- Two of our own teachers have taught in our Mexican link school and have visited our partner school in Capetown, South Africa.
- Children have become penpals, fundraising events have been organised and four of our teachers have been lucky enough to visit our partnership school in South Africa.
- 2010 saw our dedicated and innovative International Coordinator awarded International Coordinator of the year in recognition of her sterling work in this field. Congratulations, Mrs Speak!
- 2011 saw our first ‘Our World’ conference....
