Mrs Ryder has continued to coordinate our International work at St Francis'. During the Autumn term she collated all of our international work and submitted an International Schools Award application. We were so pleased when we received the Intermediate Award in December 2022. You can read the letter we were sent by clicking above. In addition, the assessor said: 

"Your school is clearly committed to developing an international and global dimension to your curriculum and whole-school ethos, promoting global citizenship and an appreciation for cultural diversity. This nicely complements your P4C and Eco Warrior programmes. Your submitted activities meet the ISA programme requirement that "your pupils’ knowledge and understanding of other countries, cultures or global issues has developed and increased". Your links with schools in Tanzania and Bangladesh can provide rich learning opportunities for both learners and staff and an authentic context to access and discuss some key global issues."

Special thanks go to Mrs Ryder for continuing to coordinate our International work!

Thank you to everyone for continuing to support our International work. This is the feedback we received about our application to be an International School. 

Dear International Coordinator,

Thank you for submitting your Impact Evaluation of international learning activities. We are delighted to inform you that St Francis CofE (Aided) Junior School has been successful in being accredited for the International School Award and is accredited for three years from 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2018.

Here are the assessor’s comments on your Impact Evaluation, to highlight where your application was particularly impressive and points to take note of as you continue to develop the international dimension in your school:

This is an excellent Impact Evaluation and a credit to your school. It systematically charts your international education journey, providing convincing evidence of your achievements on your way to attaining International School status and beyond. It also maps out a clear vision of your future plans and aspirations for broadening and improving your international learning curriculum. To this end, you have created a robust and imaginative international learning environment based on innovative areas of interest, such as the different collaborative activities you have delivered with your partner schools. You have fulfilled the success criteria for the ISA and it is our pleasure, therefore, to recommend St Francis CofE (Aided) Junior School forthe Accreditation Level of the International School Award. Your relationships with your Bangladeshi partner school is impressive and seems to have developed into a mutually stimulating partnership, generating some very good ideas in terms of the types of cross-curricular collaborative activities that you could deliver in order to bring your international education to life in a contextualized and tangible way. Your 'Living Together' activity is a good example of this type of work. In terms of your foreign language teaching and learning, it is pleasing to see that you have already established a good MFL programme, with French as the main target language. It would be exciting if you could introduce French or perhaps elements of Bengali directly into your international curriculum as the vehicles through which to engage with the global themes you have selected for study. This would not only bring you in line with the ISA regulations, but combined with the reciprocal visits and exchanges to your partner school, would also enrich the international learning experience of both your students and those of your partner schools immensely. Your plans for sustaining your international journey are sound and promise a great deal in terms of what can be achieved in the future. They also show a great deal of commitment to expanding and sustaining an international dimension in your school ethos. In addition to these plans, you would create additional impact in your global learning programme if you could reach out to other schools in an ambassadorial capacity by giving them the benefit of your own experience and expertise in the dissemination of good practice. You could then take this to the next level by identifying a group of schools that you would guide and mentor through the process of engaging with internationalism to the point of applying for and attaining the ISA in due course. Finally as you progress through your work, you will find it helpful to look back, at regular intervals, at the work you have delivered through the earlier stages of the ISA (especially keeping track of the relationship between cross-curricular areas and global themes) in order to maintain sight of the valuable expertise that you would have acquired in order to attain the full award in the first place. In line with this, I would also like to recommend that you consult with your partner schools regularly to re-visit the global themes that you have been working on in an effort to build upon and consolidate the important work you have already devised and delivered. Once again, congratulations on the work you have done so far and best wishes for your continued success in the future. Well done.

Congratulations on working so hard to co-ordinate such an impressive range of work as the International Co-ordinator. You are a credit to the school and the wider community.

Thank you to everyone who completed the questionnaire after our International Celebration in July 2015. We had 57 completed.  Below is a summary of the responses.

It is really encouraging that we all believe it is important for your children to become a global citizen and that you believe we are providing a rich, International education for your children.  Children are proud of what they learn and it is great that they are sharing their knowledge with you.

Thank you again.

Mrs Lakey

Spanish Pen Pals

Children in Year 6 and a few from Year 5 began writing to children in Spain as Pen Pals during the Summer Term 2014. By the end of the summer term children had received at least two letters from their pen pals and had sent three back. Children enjoyed receiving letters from the children abroad and were amazed by their level of English! Children had found out that although they lived in different countries they still shared similar interests e.g. One Direction, films and various toys.

Soon we will be setting up new pen pals for the Year 5 children who would like to take part and will keep you posted on how we get on.

Unfortunately, the children in Spain only wanted to send e-mails to children's personal e-mail addresses this academic year. This will not work in line with our school e-safety policy at the moment and we are looking for another school where the students would be willing to write.

Our friends in Bangladesh

In 2011 we formed links with a Christian school called Memorial Christian High School in Bangladesh. Their Head Teacher Md Runendu was keen to develop links with us.

Memorial Christian High School is located in the Cox's Bazaar region of Bangladesh. The school was set up by an American Baptist Church and contains a hospital. The Church built the hospital because people had to travel for a week to get healthcare. Once doctors from abroad were coming over to volunteer, they realised they needed a school for the doctors children. That is why the school was built. Now the school serves not only the medics but also the local community. Md Runendu was brought up in the local area as were most of the teachers. Two Christian missionaries live on the school compound and look after the visiting professionals and their children.

In October 2012 Mrs Lakey and Mrs Cooper visited Memorial Christian High School and spent the week learning about our partner school, speaking to the students there and visiting over 50 local schools. Photographs from the visit can be seen  in the Gallery section.

In October 2013 Mrs Wilkinson visited Bangladesh and had a very enjoyable time teaching the students in Memorial Christian High School. She also spent time in the Primary School.