Forty students from Birches Head Academy (BHA) recently travelled to Granada to work with partner school, Escolapios Genil Granada – a project funded by the Turing Scheme. From the 40 successful applicants, 20 students were then partnered up with 20 students from our sister school in Spain, with the aim of initiating a traditional exchange.
In March, students from BHA experienced living with exchange families during their visit. Some students found the confidence to stay for the weekend and the remainder stayed in a converted monastery attached to the partner school. All the students attended the school where they had the opportunity to practice their Spanish.
During the Granada trips, students also visited several different locations to learn about Spanish culture through tours, dance, museums food and more.
Before the Easter holiday, 20 students and 2 teachers from Spain came to visit Stoke. Some stayed with their Stoke partner for the whole time, some for a weekend, whilst the others were hosted by members of staff, governors, and local families with connections to BHA.
During their time in Stoke, students attended BHA for a few days, visited Trentham Gardens, painted plates together at the Emma Bridgewater Factory, a visit to the Stoke 6th Form College to meet up with some of our former students and participated in various well-being workshops including: art, pizza making and music at the B-Arts Studio, a combined and participatory arts organisation. During our celebration evening, the Year 11 BHA band also came to play for us.
Communicating our objectives with the wider community is an important part of the Turing Scheme. Year 10 student, Dan Cartwright and his Spanish partner, Alberto Ayala had the opportunity to take part in a radio programme with BBC Radio Stoke on a Sunday Morning with Reverend Geoff. The 2022-2023 BHA Turing Project has been filmed by Junction 15 which hopes to capture the success of this trip.
Shirley Kliment-Temple, Teacher at Birches Head Academy said: “Projects like these, support the intent to enrich the Modern Foreign Language curriculum by providing opportunities to correspond with speakers with link schools around the world, and to visit the country where the language is spoken to use the language and experience the culture. Our relationship with our partner school in Granada will strengthen and this will help to raise aspirations for global travel and work with companies and sectors that embrace internationalism”.
She added: “It was great to see the confidence of the students grow in such a short period of time. Working with the students and teachers in the Spanish school gives language learning a real boost in our academy. We hope to make exchange visits an annual experience for all to take part in”.
