Cleves Cross works hard to introduce our children to the wider world around them, including places in other countries. Being involved in international projects such as Connecting Classrooms has enabled links with other schools and from these links children have gained a better understanding of the context of each school including cultural norms, school setting, children’s interests and how people in other countries live. Children at Cleves Cross are encouraged to become global citizens and take part in regular activities to champion children’s rights around the world.
Here is a link to our action plan: International Action Plan 2021-22.
Partnership Schools
Gran Canaria
Welcome to our new partner from CEIP Chano Sanchezin Gran Canaria! Take a look at their school.
WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL CEIP CHANO SÁNCHEZ (1)
Sri Lanka
Mrs Hilton and Mr Hornsby received a warm welcome when they visited our twin school in Sri Lanka. Please have a look at some of the wonderful photos taken during their exciting visit.
Welcome to our two special guests
We are very pleased, once again, to welcome two very special visitors to our school this week. Mr Patenbendige and Mrs Liyanage arrived all the way from our twin school in Sri Lanka to spend the whole week experiencing our school way of life. They will be working with all the classes, swapping knowledge and ideas. Please keep a look out for photographs and displays that will appear around the school over the coming week.
VIP Visit
Boris Johnson visited Cleves Cross for a live classroom link-up with school children in Kenya to urge world leaders to invest in education.
The Prime Minister visited the school with Julia Gillard, former Australian PM and chairwoman of the Global Partnership for Education, and spoke to President Uhuru Kenyatta at a school in Nairobi as part of the Connecting Classrooms programme.
Christmas around the World
Over recent years, we have used the time leading up to Christmas to educate our pupils about this celebration around the world. We introduced our children to how Christmas is celebrated around the world and talk about how they celebrate it at home. We discussed how different people in the same country celebrate, as everyone celebrates differently. Each year group selected a country to research and find out about their Christmas celebrations – when it was first celebrated in Europe and how. Children explored how different countries celebrate this festival, their traditions and why it is special to them. We looked at special days and which are important in different countries. The children shared their work across school. At the end of the week the children created cards and decorations to share with our Sri Lankan partners as the schools exchange cards.
Lunar New Year Project
The Lunar New Year Project is to welcome in the Year of the Tiger in February. Six schools in County Durham were involved and worked with Chinese students from Durham University, culminating in a performance in the Town Hall on Saturday 5th February, as part of the city’s Lunar New Year celebrations, for the people of Durham. Chinese students conducted virtual visits and then at the end of the Autumn term introduced the children to the Lunar New Year celebration explored traditions of the festival, which developed a secure knowledge and understanding of the festival. This followed two or three subsequent direct visits in school when they taught the children a song which they performed and some simple Chinese speech to congratulate each other. The event was hugely popular in the local community and attracting many visitors who joined in with the traditions and celebrations. The event was marked in school with a whole school assembly when the Year 6 children can shared their work.
Year of the Tiger certificate
Lunar New Year flyer
Reception Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is part of our Reception curriculum and taught to children each year. The Chinese New Year activities are planned through “the understanding the world area of learning”. During curriculum work children had the opportunity to try different foods from China to expand their taste palate. The children tried lots of pick ‘n’ mix bowls with common Chinese food. The children also contributed by creating their own Chinese foods. Learning was supported with other planned activities and continuous provision such as listening to the Chinese New Year story and learning about the Chinese zodiac, making Chinese dragons and decorations. The celebration ended with a traditional dragon dance in the hall.
Zoom Spanish Lessons
As a school we have recently changed our Modern Foreign Language to Spanish for our Key Stage 2 pupils, as the majority of pupils at Cleves Cross travel to Spanish speaking countries for their holidays. The language skills of our pupils is currently very basic so to develop the teaching and learning of Spanish we worked with our partners in Gran Canaria. The staff from both schools worked together to plan Zoom activities to improve both Spanish and English in our corresponding schools. The children completed a variety of activities with each other to develop their language skills through real-life meaningful experiences. These opportunities were planned throughout Key Stage 2 so both pupils and teachers developed their language skills.
Thailand Cultural Partnership – Our School
Through this project, the students from both countries benefitted by learning about each other’s culture. They were exposed to people who were native of that country and experienced first-hand communication without leaving the country. The students gained new friends and were eager to learn about other people’s culture. The students prepared artwork on the key aspects of themselves, their local area and their school. This was a mix of photographs, drawings and written pieces of text alongside spoken English.
Gran Canaria visit
We used funding from the Turing Scheme to take 29 Year 6 pupils to our link school in Gran Canaria. The children had the opportunity to meet the children they had worked with during Zoom lessons with our partners. While in Gran Canaria, our children attended CEIP Chano Sánchez (for 4 days) to work alongside their peers in lessons. It gave our pupils the opportunity to immerse themselves in the local culture and learn directly from first-hand experience. The children were presented with countless opportunities to develop language skills throughout the trip.
Sri Lanka
As part our Geography curriculum the pupils in Year 2 had the opportunity to study Sri Lanka and focus on Welligama – the location of our Sri Lankan partners. The pupils located Sri Lanka on a map then looked at climate and habitats as well as understanding the physical and human geographical features of the area. The children thought about why people travel to Sri Lanka and understand people travelled to countries for different reasons. They explored a city in Sri Lanka (Colombo) and compared this city with a local city (Newcastle). They considered the difference in weather and the different seasonal weather patterns in Sri Lanka – making comparisons to the climate in the UK. The children completed their learning by considering other elements of Sri Lanka for example – Transport/Food/Growing
