Queen Elizabeth’s High School was first awarded the British Council’s prestigious International School Award in September 2014 in recognition of its work to bring the world into the classroom. This award has recently been re-accredited in both 2018 and 2022 to recognise our widening engagement in the International Schools programme.
The International School Award is a badge of honour for schools that do outstanding work in international education, such as through links with partner schools overseas. Fostering an international dimension in the curriculum is at the heart of the British Council’s work with schools, so that young people gain the cultural understanding and skills they need to live and work as global citizens.
Students at school today will live and work in a globalised society where trade with other countries will be the norm. In order to better understand this environment it is crucial that young people get exposure to other countries and their people during their formative years which is why we are so committed to the ideas behind International Schools. Our successful German exchange makes friends for life and students continue to visit each other years after the exchange is over. In the last few years we have had ex-students taking a year out before university to work in our partner school in Cham, Germany.
We have done a huge amount of international work, including school trips to Spain, France and Germany, alongside a regular programme of student exchanges. The school has also forged links with schools in Tanzania, Kenya and China.
We have taken two groups of students to our partner school in Tangshan, China, where we stayed with families as well as doing some sightseeing in Beijing and Shanghai. We have also hosted students from the school and already have some thoughts and plans about our next visit.
Our links with China are growing and many of our students and their families had the opportunity to host Chinese students from a school in Beijing in the summer of 2018.
Our link school in Tanzania is about an hour’s drive from the capital Dodoma in a small village called Mvumi. We have had several teacher exchanges and two of our students spent some time in the school a few years ago. This is another exchange we plan to grow over the next few years.
Students have already completed joint projects with other students from partner schools including ‘a day in the life’ projects, water surveys and joint music and art projects. Our students were privileged to design and make learning aids for the visually impaired students in Tanzania and these items were sent over to the school for them to use. We have also donated many old text books to support their growing library.
