International School Award Presentation

Posted at 12:48 pm on 23rd January, 2020

British Council Celebrates Wellacre’s Achievement

In September, Wellacre was successfully re-accredited with the British Council’s prestigious International School Award in recognition of our work in bringing the world into the classroom.

To celebrate Wellacre’s achievement, we were invited to the British Council offices in Manchester to be presented with the award and to take part in a special video link with a school in Finland. 

The cultural exchange via video link had been arranged so that Wellacre students, Niall and Billy, Year 9, could answer questions from pupils of Noykkio School in Espoo, Finland.

Niall and Billy provided lots of information about life in UK schools for their Finnish peers as part of the event organised by John Rolfe, School Outreach Manager for the British Council. 

Niall said:

“I was fascinated by the Finnish’s students’ lack of experience of single sex schools; we answered lots of questions about this!  However, there was a lot of similarities between our two schools too.”

The students involved took great advantage of the opportunity to learn more about each others’ school settings and the varied discussion also touched on languages, favourite subjects, school uniforms and ‘phone rules.’

The visit concluded with the official presentation of the International School Award to Mrs O’Neill, Leader of Humanities, Niall and Billy, and they also received a flag to proudly display at Wellacre. 

Wellacre’s international work embeds an international dimension to the curriculum and whole-school ethos, promoting citizenship, foreign language and an appreciation of cultural diversity across the school and wider community. 

Current initiatives include Wellacre’s AfriTwin school exchange programme, which will see students visiting schools in South Africa in February, and offers an opportunity to communicate and exchange cultural experiences. 

Wellacre’s link with our partner school in New Zealand provided a rich learning experience for students in November, when we welcomed Mr Calvert from Wellington who spoke to students about the country’s history, heritage and culture.