International School Award

The school has strong commitment to the international dimension, and has worked hard to give these activities both continuity and a central place in the school’s life. 

 

 

China

We have undertaken a variety of activities and worked hard to develop our link with our link school in China. The International coordinator went to China to visit the school last year

English have a descriptive writing unit based on World Celebrations and different places and focussed on Chinese New year

 A group of Chinese students visited us   from our partner school in July. The group of students who have been in our after school Mandarin Chinese club were   buddied up with these students and took them to lessons. The Chinese students also taught our students calligraphy. Another result of the Mandarin Chinese Club has been a visit to our local school St Catherines where we were   invited to take part in their Chinese New Year celebrations and out students sang a song in Mandarin Chinese. Our new head of MFL who arrives in September is a mandarin Chinese specialist, we have also applied for the Mandarin Excellence programme, and this has just been approved by the DFE so this is a link with great prospects. During our enrichment week, students will be learning about the language and culture of China.

In Food Technology, students   have found out   about Chinese cuisine and cooked dishes based on ideas from Chinese school. The Year 10 Hospitality & Catering students were   recently invited to the local college to participate in an Oriental themed workshop. The students   made prawn toast, vegetable spring rolls, chicken satay and mille feuille. Part of the day also involved learning about Front of House operations such as professional table laying and making elderflower mocktails.

In addition,   we hosted a group of 30 Chinese teachers from Brighton University who talked to our students about Chinese festivals and taught those Mandarin Chinese. They also went into Geography lessons and presented about geographical features of China

Finally, a year 7 tutor group have been exchanging information with our link school about a variety of tops including festivals, the local area, food etc.

Global Themed Assemblies

Throughout this academic year we have had a variety of assemblies dealing with international themes. These have been delivered by teachers at school but also we have had ex students coming in to talk about global opportunities for example.

E-mail Links with School in Germany

Two classes studying German at KS3 have been in contact with classes in a school in Elmshorn, Germany. They shared ideas on their lives as young people in their respective countries. They worked in small groups and communicated by teachers' e-mail. We then shared ideas on “a day in the life of….” talked about, for example, Eastbourne and Elmshorn, and shared ideas about facilities in their respective towns. This has been extremely motivating and students have been able to contrast ideas about life in the two countries as well as developing language skills.

Enrichment Week

In term, six we will be having an enrichment week for the first time and it will involve the whole school

The History and MFL departments are planning for a trip to France, which will take place on the third day of the three-day event. The first day will mainly focus on the history of Boulogne and teaching those students who do not teach basic survival French. The second day will include cooking French dishes and researching Boulogne. The third day we will visit Boulogne, complete a treasure hunt and ask for items in shops

The other international event will focus on mandarin Chinese for three days. Students will learn mandarin on the first day and on the second day students will learn Kung Fu and take part in activities focussing on Chinese culture. The third day will be spent on learning calligraphy. In addition, researching cultural information

Ethics and World Religion

All students in year 8 study Hinduism. The Ethics department are also studying Buddhism with year 10 students. There are still plans to set up a link with a Buddhist school abroad. Other topics covered are pilgrimages in year 10 and year 9 students have looked at activism in America India and Tibet. Year 10 classes have also looked at global issues with a particular focus on the environment.

Foods of the World

Year 9 students have been researching food and drink from other countries. They have also used the links we have with school abroad to research recipes etc. They spent a week at different times serving and cooking dishes to all the students in the school. This was very successful and improved students' language skills and increased their knowledge of other cultures and the world of work. It also improved their team working skills.

Interact

This year the interact group has worked to help the homeless and other vulnerable groups in Eastbourne. This includes working with Mathew 25 (Eastbourne outreach centre) to provide donations for the homeless community in the winter months, and organising the summer fete.

Interact is looking to continue this work on a global as well as local scale. This will involve providing resources for refugees in Calais. This issue is also covered within the curriculum but a strong group of students are involved on an extracurricular level.

E Twinning and language Activities

Two of our partner schools are organising a cultural class trip to the UK in June and September 2019, which will involve comparing their school in Germany to our comprehensive state school in England and a local fee-paying school, Bedes. We have started to an e-Twinning project with one school, centred on ‘school systems in Germany and England’. Students’ presentations have been posted on the online e twinning platform and students have been able to compare and contrast findings.

Another project has been created on the e-Twinning online platform with colleagues from Poland and England. Primary and Secondary schools are part of a project about ‘Hobbies and Interests’. The project’s aims to answer the following questions about hobbies and interests in our different countries

in addition ,as language activities a group of PGCE students from the University of Brighton arranged a CLIL day for year 9 where they promoted the importance of learning a MFL. They also taught our students dance etc. through the medium of the foreign language. One of our trainee teachers also spoke to all our year 9 students about the importance of MFL. We also organised the International Day of Languages where all year seven students were off timetable for a day and took part in activities with an international theme eg learning Maltese, salsa dancing etc.

Model UN

Model United Nations, also known as Model UN or MUN, is an educational simulation and/or academic activity in which students can learn about diplomacy, international relations, and the United Nations”.

A student started the group when she was in Year 10. She chairs the meetings with the help of a member of the MFL department. There are fortnightly meetings to discuss global politics and plan bi-annual events. These events set out to discuss world issues from the perspective of different countries within the United Nations. To date we have talked about the suffering in Myanmar and Plastics in the Oceans. Students try to come to a resolution by the end of the event, usually 2-hours in duration, and a summary is given.

This has all been shared with students in all year groups through assemblies to the whole school.

Irish Dance

Geography Links with Hong Kong