Harry Gosling Primary School is a two form entry primary school in Tower
Hamlets. The school is 99% Bangladeshi with a large number of children
who are entitled to free school meals. We are centred in a tightly
knit Muslim community; most families do not speak English at home. It
is really
important
that we incorporate a global dimension in our school in order to
prepare the children for life beyond the community - the global society
we live
in today.
Background to our Inner London School
We linked our year
6 class with a parallel class from our partner school in India and carried
out
several
joint
curriculum
projects by linking our topic work. Each term as the children learned
about their topic they created an end product to share with our partner
school and vice versa. End products often linked with
literacy
lessons, such as our John Lennon biographies.
Skype interviews
Although the majority of people e-mail, there is often nothing more exciting
that receiving a handwritten letter from a friend. Instead we decided
to set up child-led interviews using the Skype internet phone. In groups,
the children prepared
questions for their partners in India on the topic both classes were
studying. While our partner, Pranava School asked us about John Lennon,
we asked them about Subba Lakshmi., a Hindi classical singer. Similarly
the children asked questions about mountains and landscape in each other’s
local areas and prepared detailed answers to give.
The benefits
We found that the children were far more conscious about the work that
they were producing, often asking their friends if it was neat enough
or interesting enough. They were more inspired to be creative and finish
their work in time to be sent abroad. As for the communication skills,
we were astounded. Speaking in front of others was especially intimidating
for our children and particularly many of the girls who we reluctant
to get involved – but it’s amazing how caught up in the moment
they became during our Skype interviews and all inhibitions were soon
forgotten.
Next steps with India
After piloting the link with year 6, we are eager to meet with the
link teacher in India and consider how we can develop a whole school
link and we have been lucky enough to be awarded a grant to visit this
August. Nevertheless in the meantime we will continue to celebrate international
events and carry out globally-themed school projects. Next for us is
Multicultural Week when the children will travel around different countries
(classrooms) with their passports and plane tickets ready to learn about
a new culture from a different teacher throughout the school.
