Rebecca Bollands is deputy head at Howes Community primary school in Coventry. Here she talks about international school exchanges.

How did you first get involved in taking children on exchange visits?

I have been involved in EU programmes for some fifteen years, now Erasmus + and initially with the Comenius school programme. What happens is that four to six schools across Europe join up and they plan the projects. These are usually linked to curriculum aims. The project runs for two to three years and within that project you have staff exchange and, if you want, pupil exchanges. It is focused on a theme that fits in your curriculum. I guess in the early days it would’ve been a lot of ‘getting to know you’ kind of projects but these days they are looking for more specific projects based on pedagogies or on curriculum areas. Our last three-year project had a focus on getting more female students studying science, technology and maths subjects, starting from age three. And our current project is about more active and independent learning.

So first it was about teacher exchanges?

Yes, that is right. Eventually we felt brave enough to do exchanges with children and I think it’s quite unusual to have primary school visits. But about ten years ago we started taking the first group of primary school children to partner schools in Europe and then, obviously, I mentioned about the visit to Japan but that’s a whole other thing.

What European schools have you worked with?

We have been involved in six or seven projects and we have worked with quite a number of different schools across Europe. And typically the projects have a mix of primary, secondary and all through education. I have worked with schools in Iceland, Denmark, Malta, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Finland and Italy. We have taken groups of children to all these countries. What happens is one school hosts the meeting and each of the partners schools take a group of children there. When the children get to the partner school they are not only working with the children in that school, for example, Italian children if you are in Italy, but you are working with children from all the other partner countries as well. So it is a fully international experience. And they stay with local families. And since all this is within the Erasmus framework all the costs are covered.

What made your school and yourself so interested in getting involved in Erasmus?

I think it is because I have led Modern languages and I am just interested in international schools’ work. Also, I had been doing quite a lot of online work and videoconferencing with schools internationally. I had heard about Erasmus but I was always a little bit nervous about all the paperwork. But I guess the push to go down that road made me overcome my doubts. It was that initial interest in working more widely and getting to work with other countries.

What do you know see as the pros and cons of working internationally?

I think it changes school culture. It probably depends on the school, but for children who have never been out of the UK or even Coventry, it widens their horizons. It gives them pride in their own school because they see that teachers and pupils have made the effort to come to visit them and it is the same for the other schools when we visit. It makes everyone feel special. And, of course, for the children they learn about the other countries that we are working with - that’s not the focus of the project but it is tied in to why we do the project. Children come away with a better understanding that whatever they want to do in life is not limited to Coventry.

Clearly the educational benefits are very high on the agenda for us from the point of view of teacher dialogue, teacher learning, and new opportunities for learning as we go through these projects. For example, in our science and technology project we did a lot of work with augmented reality and virtual reality with a university in Poland which was an experience we wouldn’t normally get. And this helped create links for us in the UK, for example with Coventry University now we do a lot of work with their Disruptive media learning lab as well and that came out from working with Erasmus.

Do you know what happens to these Erasmus projects after Brexit?

Well, our current Erasmus project is fully funded because the government agreed to fund every project that was pre-Brexit. But in these projects there are countries like Turkey and Norway who sit outside of the European Union and they still take part so I guess we’ll continue being part of it. That’s my feeling.

How many schools in the UK have signed up for Erasmus+?

I don’t think we have any other schools in Coventry at the moment but I imagine there are at least a hundred other Erasmus+ projects across the UK. Occasionally, I meet them at the national agency, British Council, meetings and we do exchange some ideas, but it is interesting that we are not in regular touch with the other schools involved in the UK.

Apart from Erasmus you have organised a visit to Japan. How did that come about?

It all came from the Olympics. When we had London 2012 Olympics schools from all over the UK and obviously from Coventry too were really involved and we capitalized from a sports and health point of view. When it got to Rio, things didn’t happen very effectively, so straight after Rio I got in touch with the Japan Foundation so that we could have programme in place and a four year build up to Tokyo 2020. We worked on conferences with children and we did a lot of work around the idea of Tokyo, the games and doing sport. And as part of all that we thought it would be very useful for children to go to Japan and see some of the venues, learn about sports, learn about Olympics values by working with children in Japan. So we arranged for 10 children from five different primary schools to go.

They were all Coventry schools and they were schools we have done quite a lot of work with before. So there were two students and one teacher from each school. We were 17 people in total. Students were ambassadors and had to talk about their schools and we gave presentation about Coventry and the city of culture in Japan. The children had to bring back some information to share with their schools.

How did you select the students to take part in the trip?

In Coventry we have the Coventry young ambassadors scheme so the first pre requisite was for the student to be a Coventry young ambassador, in year 5 or 6. And they had to apply. They had to write why they would be a good ambassador of the city and what they would bring back. Another pre-requisite was related to the food. Students had to be happy to have a go with eating anything that was put in front of them without having an idea of what it was!

When did you go and how long did you stay there?

This trip took place last November and we stayed there for almost two weeks. Students and staff stayed in hostel accommodation because this was a visit that we had arranged ourselves and considering the children’s age we thought it was better the keep the children with us, rather than find host families. It was all linked to Tokyo 2020 so we spent some time visiting the venues for the games which was really exciting. We also worked with a secondary school, we went to look at the sports they offered and we did some work with them about the Olympics. Then we took time out and went out of Tokyo, to another city in Japan and we visited two different primary schools doing art projects linked to Olympic values.

 Who funded this?

I applied to the Daiwa Foundation, which funds Japanese education projects. They funded the majority of it and the schools did a bit of fundraising and events.

 Were there any difficult situations during your stay?

No, not really, but it was the first time I was taking such young children such a long way so there are things that I would do differently. For example, they were very tired. It was obviously a long flight and I would have arranged a flight that got there in the afternoon so that they could go to bed straight after. Instead we arrived in the morning so they struggled during the day.

Language was not the issue it could have been. We prepared the students with some basic Japanese lessons before the trip and in the schools in Japan they sat in lessons with the Japanese children and they communicated as if language didn’t make any difference to them. We always encourage students and the staff to learn the language of the country we are visiting, but usually the main language is English.

 Was the visit to Japan similar or different to the other visits students you have organised?

Well, there were very different cultural elements to think about but there was much in common with other visits. Of course, Japan was a huge eye-opener, it is a very different society and of course there was learning about the Olympics and visiting the venues and that made it different from the other trips. Everywhere the children went they were like mini celebrities. When they went to look at the stadiums they were local school children lined up waving flags for them. So I think it gave them pride in themselves and in the city because they knew they were there to represent the city. It was a very big learning experience. And they could see a different culture and that there are different ways of doing things, different food, different sense of manners and etiquettes and what you assume as the norm, because that’s what you grew up with, is really only one way of doing things. And a lot of the children said that they wanted to go back, and that is really positive. It gave them a spirit to explore the world and learn more. It also helped them to become more independent.

 What would you advise people who want to get involved in exchanges?

I would say definitely do it! With primary school children, you have to be quite brave because you have to think about all the potential risks. But I think that the benefits are way higher than the potential risks. I would suggest that working within a framework such as Erasmus makes things easier as you know you are working within a programme where you know there will be someone who will turn up at the airport and there will be teachers in the host cities who will help you through the process.

Although it is a lot of work, I would say definitely do it. You can take advice from people who have already done it. But you also need to have that school culture, for everyone in the school to know why you are doing these visits and you need to create that trust and interest from the families.

 

 

Notes

1. For more on international exchanges go to the British Council web site at https://www.britishcouncil.org/
2. At the time of writing there are various schemes promoting different regions and aimed at different age groups. Erasmus+ funding it itself is still advertised. The scheme offers help for teachers, lecturers and non-academic staff develop their skills through visits abroad. Erasmus+ funding also supports higher education students in going to study at a partner university or carry out a traineeship abroad and for school exchanges. A new round of funding from the Department for Education, and managed by the British Council, is offered for further school exchanges.
3. The Daiwa Foundation supports closer links between Britain and Japan and makes grants to promote links between the UK and Japan across all fields of activity as well as providing scholarships to young British graduates to study Japan. https://dajf.org.uk/
4. Coventry Ambassadors is a local volunteer programme inspired by London 2012. The young ambassadors programme is aims at young children. Go to https://env.uk.com/coventry-ambassadors/ and https://env.uk.com/our-programmes/coventry-young-ambassadors-programme/