We are proud of the progress made in our strong link and for the young people and fortunate to be linked with Shenzhen, which is referred to as the 'economic powerhouse of China' , being one of the first Economic Action Zones in China and boasting an enviable average economic growth rate of nearly 30%! Shenzhen was a small fishing village 25 years ago and now has a population of nearly 10 million, with the highest concentration of graduates in China. This bodes well for mutual benefits to be gained from the link as our young people look to acquire economic, linguistic and social global citizenship skills in a current and future global economy.
In the school and activity profiles and on school websites you will hear about the benefits, experiences and plans from individual schools, summarised in current mapping exercise of school-to-school activity.
There is a photo gallery recording the fruitful collaboration, which has resulted in many friendships and increased mutual cultural understanding, enriched teaching and learning and has been hugely enjoyable for all involved! You can also read a report on a Physical Education and Sports Research visit to China that took place at Easter 2007.
The visit to Shenzhen in October 2007 helped develop our mandarin teaching and learning strategy for schools and communities in Warwickshire and support national strategies and foreign language learning.
In our 2nd year of HSBC Bank Area Links funding the Headteachers of 3 secondary schools with language specialisms and from a Primary School leading on a national Primary Languages Pilot travelled to Shenzhen to develop school to school links and to progress a strategy and framework to support the teaching and learning of mandarin in our schools.
October 2008 will see an HSBC Bank funded visit to our partner city of Shenzhen, China of 3 senior School Inspectors; the performing arts, sports and secondary specialists will work with our linked schools to develop HSBC funded curriculum projects which will facilitate student exchanges and collaborative work in "physical creativity using ICT" using ecommunication via the Warwickshire we-learn.com portal.
Teachers from other linked schools in Warwickshire will visit their partner schools (SSAT funded), at the same time, to progress collaboration, and the Headteacher of a Special school will make links with a respective school in Shenzhen to develop pupil to pupil communication and to share strategies of behavioural challenges in schools.
NB It is to be noted that the link with China and visits to China have been fully funded through our successful bid for Area to Area Links status, funded through HSBC Bank, and school-linking visits variously funded by the DCSF, Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and Hanban (The Chinese Cultural Organisation). |