Our school, Pakefield Primary School in Lowestoft, has a distinct multicultural feel. Despite our town having a predominantly White British demographic, Pakefield pupils run down the corridors practising Bollywood dancing and displays feature photos of young African children playing football.
Although the periphery of Lowestoft is diverse, the town itself sees very little multicultural influence. East Anglia in general has some quite isolated communities, and bad press on immigration can really limit the way children view the world. By using labels such as "immigrant" we are effectively dehumanising whole groups of people, deliberately or otherwise, discouraging empathy and encouraging segregation.
It was with this in mind that Pakefield got involved in two local projects with international reach. Partnering with two schools, one in Uganda and the other in India, has helped us to achieve our aim of opening the world up to our pupils and encouraging them to see themselves as global citizens.
Partnering with schools in different countries is largely seen as beneficial to these schools. Usually in developing countries, such partnerships can involve financial aid or simple gestures that go a long way, such as sending over toys and classroom materials. However, the benefits to our own pupils here in the UK are often overlooked.
It is through these partnerships, and the links we have maintained with the schools, that our pupils are able to reap the benefits for their own personal and intellectual development, as well as helping others and making friends from across the world. Our links have shown that such partnerships do not only benefit foreign schools, but also bring advantages and learning closer to home.
Eden School
Our project with the Eden School (located in the mountains of the Lake Bunyoni region in Uganda) involved working with a local photographer, Julian Claxton. The project was conceived after Julian organised a charity bike ride from Beccles to Uganda, in which a variety of local people took part. He really fell in love with Uganda and the Ugandan people and decided to do more to engage further.
From this, the Give a Child a Camera initiative was set up. Julian donated second-hand digital cameras to the pupils at Eden School, with the idea that they would photograph their school day. We bought our own pupils disposable cameras to encourage them to do the same. This would inspire cultural exchange and the opportunity to learn from one another.
What has been really interesting is the similarities that have arisen between our two communities, which, on the face of it, couldn't be more different. The school in Uganda is also in a somewhat isolated region, so the head was very keen to get involved and have a link with another country.
Our children have been fascinated that the Ugandan children have similar interests to them, and are intrigued by differences, such as the fact that some of the Ugandan pupils don't have shoes. This inspired a series of photos from our pupils of their shoes.
This really summed up the project for me, by creating this link our pupils are not only learning about a different culture and country, but also developing empathy and understanding. I never thought I would be moved by a picture of some trainers!
Photos such as these also show that the project was the children's project, not their parents'. It was crucial to us that the children were photographing and sharing what was important to them, not what they thought they should photograph or what their parents thought might be interesting or unusual.
As a result, we got a lot of photos of dinners, family members and work in PSHE classes. The photos we sent over provided a touching and realistic portrait of not only our pupils' lives, but British life in general, just like the photos we received gave us a real sense of what it was like to learn at Eden School, and what it was like to be Ugandan.
Kampur City
As the key stage 2 geography curriculum doesn't include learning about continents such as Africa and countries like India, this project, alongside our partnership with Sir Padampat Singhania Education Centre in Kampur City, India, has also enhanced our pupils' geographical knowledge.
Pakefield High School originally set up the partnership, and via this we have been able to partner ourselves with the lower school. This means that if our pupils go on to study at the high school, they will have the opportunity to visit Sir Padampat.
The work we have been doing with the Indian school has its main focus in an exchange programme. Pupils have been exchanging letters and photographs, as well as taking part in activities such as creating comic strips depicting their day-to-day life, and are looking forward to being able to visit their new friends when they are older.
We collaborated with the high school on the comic strip project, and their students and the children at Sir Padampat wrote theirs in French. Creating their own comic strip characters and explaining long-standing comic characters have again encouraged the children to see similarities as well as differences between cultures.
It is really rewarding to see how inspired the pupils have become in such a short space of time. We now have our year 6s Bollywood dancing down the corridors (they learnt their moves from Harpreet and Bhawna, teachers from Sir Padampat), learning how to write their names in Hindi and spending time designing intricate mehndi patterns for their hands. Through the partnerships they have also been inspired to learn foreign languages, the pupils at Sir Padampat are taught in English and learn French.
Conclusion
I think of this enthusiastic energy that runs through the corridors of our school as the excitement of embracing difference, and at Pakefield you can now see multiculturalism wherever you look. Julian's visits, videos, photobooks and displays we have created, as well as the links with the schools themselves, mean that diversity is just part of the norm. Effectively, we have transformed something different and strange to part of the every-day.
Following the success of these projects I am now exploring the benefits of national outreach initiatives, working with UK schools serving diverse demographics. We're keen to establish partnerships with schools in areas such as Birmingham or London, whereby our children can learn what it is like to grow up and learn in a city environment, and vice-versa.
In addition, we would also like to work with industry. Unemployment is high within Lowestoft, and we want to develop aspirations within our pupils that they previously may not have considered. East Anglia is a hub for industry, so it would be good to forge some links with companies, both large and small, to help our pupils understand the variety of career options open to them both locally and nationally.
Our experiences so far have demonstrated that the benefits from outreach activities don't just extend to schools in far-flung corners of the globe, but also our own classrooms and schools. With this in mind, and in the interest of broadening our partnerships, please do get in touch if you also want to benefit from the unique opportunities these projects have offered our students.
- Helen Phillips is a reception teacher at Pakefield Primary School, part of the Active Learning Trust. Visit http://pakefieldprimaryschool.org.uk