Stockport School currently holds the full British Council International Schools Award, which recognises that we have an established programme of activities around international education and embedded in learning across the school. During the 2019-2020 academic year we reapplyed for reaccreditation of the award.
Some of the activities that this award recognises include:
- European Languages Week: Staff and pupils around the school take part in a week full of events to celebrate European Day of Languages, including language taster sessions, a fancy dress competition, the European Bake Off, the Bush tucker trial and much, much more!
- MFL Singing Competition: Each Year 7 Languages class learns a song in the language they are studying and performs it front of the rest of the year group, competing with their peers to be the champions! This year, Mr Kelly’s Spanish class won the competition singing Un poco loco from the film Coco.
- Evening of Languages and the Arts: Pupils from across the school perform pieces of drama, music and dance from different cultures in languages other than English where applicable. Pieces in 2019 included an extract from Matilda in Spanish, a piece from Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis in Italian, an extract from Metamorphosis in German, an improvised piece based on the Spanish Civil War, a multilingual poem, a Russian poem and numerous other pieces in French, German and Spanish.
- Art projects: The art department looks and Mexican and Japanese art in-depth during Key Stage 3, analysing the culture of these two countries, looking at how this is reflected in the artwork produced in these countries and encouraging pupils to create their own artwork based on traditions such as Día de muertos.
- Geography curriculum: The geography curriculum naturally lends itself to broadening pupils’ international understanding, and pupils research skills are developed in projects relating to the Middle East in Year 7, and with Year 10’s synthesis and analysis skills being put to the test later this year by taking what they have learnt about Ethiopia and refining it for a Year 8 audience.
- Poems from other cultures: Every Year 9 pupil studies poems from other cultures in their English lessons to ensure they are exposed to a variety of literature from beyond their own culture. This raises cultural awareness, encourages open-mindedness, provides interesting discussion points and develops pupils literary analysis skills.
- Languages Futures: Mrs Robinson runs a weekly after-school club in which pupils can teach themselves whatever language they choose, with the support of a Languages teacher to guide them in the language learning process. Languages that pupils have chosen to study in the past include Korean, Japanese, Swedish, Finnish, Greek and many, many more!
- Mexico Pen Pal Project: This year we have set up a new partnership with a school in Mexico. Pupils in Years 7, 8 and 9 who study Spanish will all be taking part in pen pal projects with Mexican pupils to practise their Spanish and learn more about Mexican daily life and culture.
eTwinning projects: eTwinning is an online platform that allows classrooms in the UK to team up with classrooms in other European countries to take part in projects about different languages and cultures. Find out about how we use eTwinning at Stockport School here.