For the past year we have been developing our International Programme. Mr Stewart, the Partnership Development Manager has Strategic oversight of the programme working closely with Mrs Oglesby, the International Links Co-ordinator for the School, who was appointed last year. Initially we are concentrating on our Year 7 Opening Minds students and we will roll out involvement as the students progress through the school.

In October we also appointed an International Link Co-ordinator for each Faculty. Mr Appleby is representing Science; Mr Phipps represents Creative and Performance; Ms McKenna represents World Studies; Mr Travis represents Maths and Mrs Oglesby represents Opening Minds.

As our concentration is on our Opening Minds students, an International Representative has been appointed from each of the Opening Minds form groups.

We have already completed a one year project on the Environment with George School in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This culminated in a video conferencing session between our Opening Minds students and students from the school in Sierra Leone. This took place in July at Liverpool Museum.

Following a visit of three of our Staff, including the Head,to Azerbaijan, and a reciprocal visit by Staff from Azerbaijan, as part of the British Council Dreams and Teams Initiative, in league with the Youth Sports Trust, we have a link with Lankaran Mekteb 10 in Azerbaijan. We have produced a Plan for the two schools involving two strands. The first strand involves our 6th Form Sports Leaders assisting the Sports Leaders from Lankaran Mekteb 10 to develop a programme for disability in sport and women in sport working with students from the local primary schools in Azerbaijan. The second strand involves our Opening Minds students who will link electronically and by conventional post with the Azerbaijan students on different projects.

We have also established a link with Reus School in Helsinki, Finland. This was a deliberate choice as they are heavily involved in Project Based Learning as are our Opening Minds classes. Currently our Opening Minds groups are preparing letters which they are going to send to their counterparts in Helsinki.

Our latest project is to establish a link with a school in Shanghai. It is ten years since Liverpool was twinned with Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, and it would seem to be a propitious moment to do this. We are also sending two students, with Staff, to Shanghai to visit the Expo 2010 which is taking place from May to October 2010. This is part of the Educational thrust of Liverpool’s involvement which is to send two students from each of the Secondary schools in the City to visit the Expo. The school we are attempting to link with is the Number One Children’s Sports School, New Pudong Area, Shanghai. As a result of the above we have started offering Mandarin classes after school for not just the two students who will visit China but also for some of our gifted linguists in Year 10.

Our Partnership Development Manager, Mr Stewart is also acting as the International Co-ordinator for our Neighbourhood Infant and Primary Schools to initiate or facilitate their International Programmes. An aspect of this will involve our Opening Minds students working with the students in the Infant and Primary Schools to assist them in this.

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