Internationalising LearningAt Ditton Primary

Vickie Toft & Claire Treasure

Our Aims:Following the first two days of the Internationalising Learning Training, we aimed to:

• Include international learning in our Year 5 and Year 2 planning, e.g. through English and topic.

• Develop a whole school approach to include aspects of internationalised learning, developing children’s awareness of the diversity of Britain and the wider world.

• Set up links with a school in another country.

Our plans …On our return to school, we developed a three stage plan:• Identify opportunities for internationalising learning in the

curriculum.• Lead a staff meeting to make colleagues aware of our plans and to

support the whole school to incorporate internationalised learning into their planning.

• Set up links with schools from a contrasting locality.

Our obstacles!• A jam packed (and very short) half-term! • Long term planning made it difficult for us to incorporate

internationalised learning – Out of this World?! How does it work?! • Until I Met Dudley Book Week (Whole school)

The CurriculumOur first step was to look at the topics we were due to start in the coming half term.

KS1 – Out of this WorldLKS2 – Big BangUKS2 – How things work

None of these topics provided an easy way in with internationalising our curriculum! Shoe horning was not something we wanted to do!

In addition, we had a whole school book week on ‘Until I met Dudley’ by Roger McGough which we also would have struggled with!

The CurriculumSO... We looked at the next topics …

KS1 – ParklifeLKS2 – EgyptiansUKS2 – Footsteps Across … Africa

The KS1 and LKS2 themes created issues with the need for a particular topic focus e.g. Parklife – Science and Egyptians – History. As the UKS2 topic obviously covers Africa, we decided to create a plan together. We plan to use this later in our staff meeting.

The LinksAs a school, we had already signed up to the British Council website, but for very different objectives!

Our deputy head was the named person on the account as she had a particular interest in linking with a French school.

Our goals had changed!

Our first step was to edit the account to find a school which would have the same goals as ourselves!

We have been involved in training over the past twelve months - 'Internationalising Learning on a Global Scale’. We identified, through this, that our children lack an understanding of places outside their immediate environment and have a limited experience of other cultures. Their views of the world are very one dimensional and restricted, and are based solely on media representation. We would like our children to develop a rounder view of at least one area of the world. We are very open as to where these links will lead us. We would like to open communications with friendly schools!We look forward to hearing from you soon!

The Links

The LinksWe have had a number of replies from...

• India

• Pakistan

• Bangladesh

• Brazil

• Palestine

• Tanzania

• Sri Lanka

How do we choose? Where do we go from here?

What are our priorities???

The Staff MeetingAs we had begun this course last year, the majority of our staff had already been made aware of our interest in making our curriculum ‘International’.

We started by sharing the results of an audit we began through an anonymous questionnaire and a school walk!

Many members of staff were already including more internationalised learning than they realised!

We took photographs of ideas that staff had incorporated into their previous topics.

We also shared some of our successes from last year with colleagues...

EYFS & KS1

KS2

Successes from last year:In Year 5 / 6, we looked at topic and English objectives needing to be covered. We quickly realised that we could easily include aspects of internationalised learning.English - Arguments:• Wind farms, fossil fuels, solar energy• Fair Trade • ‘The World Came to my Place Today’ – Should we only buy locally sourced

produce?

Topic – Around the World in 28 Days:• Knowledge of the World – continents, countries, climate • How countries use physical features – Spain, Czech Republic, Austria • Two faces of Africa – challenge stereotypes• Australia – how countries influence each other• South America – ‘Journey to the River Sea’, Who lives in the Amazon?• North America – comparing school life in parts of Mexico with the UK • Return to the UK – The World Comes to our Place Everyday.• Dress as somebody from any country – Unicef donation (£74), parental

involvement

We took the idea from the initial training and incorporated it into our Year 6 English unit about arguments.

The class sat in a circle around a large map of the world. Each child had an item and when the it was mentioned during the story, they placed it on the map. (Pointed out by TA or teacher.)This led to a class discussion about where things come from and touching on ‘Fair Trade’. (Children had completed work relating to Fair Trade.)

We then posed the question to the class:“Should we only buy locally sourced produce?”Following a brief class discussion, the children then worked in two large groups to create points for and against.We then recorded a whole class discussion.

As our Topic was “Around the World in 28 Days”, we were able to adapt our planning immediately on return to school. We looked at the children’s knowledge and understanding of the World and then tried to challenge some of their ideas.

We thought about challenging stereotypes about Africa: The Two Faces of Africa.

Our class story was ‘Journey to the River Sea’ by Eva Ibbotson. This is based on a young girl that moves from Britain to the Amazon. Initially the children found it difficult to grasp the idea that the family was a wealthy British family living in the area. We decided to include this in our Topic planning.

Through this story, we explored the different cultures and lifestyles within the Amazon and challenged the ideas that the children had.

As a closing to the topic, we looked at the impact that charities have on other countries. We particularly looked at ‘Unicef’ and the change that donations make to children’s lives.

We decided to invite the children to wear ‘clothes from another country’ for the day and to make a donation to Unicef. The parents came into school for a coffee morning on this day and the children explained the work that we had done.

The children had started to realise the similarities between countries and the influence that they have on each other. This was a more positive focus than the differences between countries.

Peer Coaching:Due to the constraints of the previous half term, we have focussed on the Summer term. We:

• Planned a range of lessons together in both English and Topic

focussing on the UKS2 topic.

• Planned time for Vickie to be involved in these lessons and to

observe.

• Will feedback and reflect on individual lessons and topics,

creating ideas for future lessons.

• Will continue to share our ideas with other colleagues.

• Carry out the proposed staff meeting.

UKS2 Topic: Footsteps Across … Africa

Together, we have created an overview of what could be included in the topic. • We have tried to avoid being stereotypical.• We have tried to focus on the diversity of the countries and

cultures in Africa. • We have tried to include the children’s own knowledge and

experiences.• We have focussed on some of the children’s interests.

Next Steps…• Develop a whole school topic, embedding

internationalised learning into our current creative curriculum

• Make contacts with link schools through the British Council.

• Investigate projects and funding for a long term project or link.… and final thoughts!

• How will the new curriculum affect our plans?