Projects

Progress reports 2002 - 2003

The Thomas Lord Audley School and Language College / College de l’esplanade

Staff

Jonathan Else / Jack Tenebre

Background

We were delighted with the outcome of the Project Meeting in London in January and with our allocated school. As a Language College at the beginning of its second year and with me in my first year as Language College Director, I was delighted to be asked to participate in such a prestigious project. Indeed, I see one of my main functions as Language College Director to be the promotion of the very objectives at the heart of the Project. In addition, we saw our advanced IT provision at this school as being particularly suited to such a link with our allocated School.

During our initial meeting at this conference, we drew up a Development Plan, experience telling us all along that we cannot move too quickly if we are to achieve maximum success. This is the information contained in the agreed Development Plan (copy enclosed). We were given a number of documents on St. Omer and promised to send back materials on our area, in order that an initial “old-style” display could begin the process of cooperation and understanding between our respective schools/countries.

Progress to date

As Language College Director I asked one of my colleagues whether he would like to develop such a link prior to our initial application. This he agreed to do. He got hold of a number of publicity materials from the local tourist board and sent them by post to France (we saw a display on Colchester when we went over recently). Due to other demands within the Language College this year, we have unable to do many very specific and student-related activities. However, we have made every effort to keep in contact with one-another as schools. The Project Leader, Stéphane Derône, made a short film about our school with members of his French class, as requested by the French school, and we took this over on our recent visit. The French school are to work on their video shortly but are feeling their way forward on this project and we made the agreement not to put each other under unnecessary pressure.

Our greatest and most enjoyable experience connected with the link has been a visit to the College in St.Omer by the two of us. We travelled out on Thursday 12 June and back on Friday 13 June. We met the Principal (and our colleague Jack Tenebre) and saw the school, also observing Section Europeene lessons and gradually understanding more clearly which links would be appropriate for which students, class sizes, etc. We also met more formally and discussed the needs in particular of the College, as it seems that they receive funding specific to this Project and must fulfil certain criteria by certain dates.

Future plans

The Headteacher and M. Tenebre were due to visit us this week (8th and 9th July), but due to a family crisis this has not been possible. We await notification of their visit, but realise that this will now probably be affected by the Summer Holidays. However, we made the following plans for the period up to December 2003:

To select a group of 20/25 students in each country by the end of the Summer Term who will be key participants in the Project
To send names and photographs to partner school
To Meet with these students and commence pen-friend links(postal/e-mail)
To meet on a regular basis as a group to video-conference (see below)
To inform parents and students of the intention to host a short exchange in December 2003 (2/3 nights only) based at the Thomas Lord Audley School and Language College
To return to France before Easter 2004.

Video-Conferencing

We are looking to commence a video-conferencing link as soon as practicable. We have installed a top-quality video-conferencing unit in the Language College and are part of the Global Leap/DfES’s ‘Video-Conferencing in the Classroom Project’. This has provided the school with a number of video-conferencing opportunities across the curriculum, which we are taking full advantage of. We have been successful in our bid for funding from Global Leap, who have provided us with a Broadband Videophone for lease to the College for as long as we wish. This will enable us to make the most of our link and will bring reality into the partnership for both staff and students.

Ideas or recommendations in the light of our experience

The idea of a link with language colleges is a good one. However, I am under the impression that the terms and conditions relating to participation are different in the two countries. I believe the French schools receive specific funding for this Section Europeene activity and must report back to the Ministry at specific intervals with specific outcomes. It would have been useful to know initially that we were applying for a project with such specific goals in mind. As far as I am concerned, the Project is an excellent opportunity for our staff and students, but it takes its place alongside many other international development opportunities available at the Thomas Lord Audley School and Language College. As such I do not wish to rush its development; I do want it to be a success.

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