An international dimension is embedded into our curriculum at Washingborough Academy and is something we have worked extremely hard on over the years. We want our pupils to become ‘Global Citizens’ in this increasingly connected world that we live in. Therefore, we ensure that we provide a range of opportunities for our pupils across the whole curriculum including: hosting international exchange visits, participating in international project exchanges, celebrating festivals from many cultures, international food activities, learning about specific countries and investigating the environment and sustainable futures.
Through our international work we have created numerous international partner schools across the world from: Poland, Slovenia, China, Morocco and Italy (to name only some). These links have been created through the school participating in a number of Erasmus and British Council funded projects over the years.
Our work with these international schools and organisations involves staff visiting the countries for their own career development, for children to explore each partner country through the eyes of the staff visiting, carry out project work which involves the exchanging of work, photographs and presentations and to meet the children of our international partner schools virtually.
Current international projects and links:
International Education Week – Monday 17th November – Friday 21st November 2025
This year, Washingborough Academy focused on the British Council’s celebration of 100 years of UK–Ukraine links by exploring the beauty and importance of the Ukrainian language and culture across the whole school.
Throughout the week, each year group engaged in activities inspired by the British Council Ukrainian Language and Culture Education Pack. Children learned Ukrainian greetings, explored the Cyrillic alphabet, created traditional crafts such as sunflowers, Pysanky egg designs, and Maria Prymachenko-inspired art and even read letters from Ukrainian children to compare school and family life.
Work produced by the children, including photos, videos, artwork, and language activities, was uploaded to a shared Sway document. This allowed our whole school community to enjoy and celebrate the creativity and global learning taking place in every classroom.
This focus on Ukraine gave pupils a wonderful opportunity to develop cultural understanding, empathy and curiosity about the wider world. The enthusiasm and pride shown by the children throughout the week were truly inspiring.
Please click the link below to view a selection of the children’s cultural and language learning from across the school:
https://sway.cloud.microsoft/vXqIDtVCWJ5rTfEB?ref=Link&loc=mysways
Chinese New Year
We recently celebrated Chinese New Year with all students actively participating in a variety of engaging activities. The children explored the rich language, culture, history, and traditional stories of China, enhancing their understanding of this vibrant country. The experience was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone and greatly contributed to the development of their international learning and global awareness.
Please click the link below to see examples of the children’s work:
https://sway.cloud.microsoft/Lz58dDjbAAwFSQJK?ref=Link
International Education Week – 18th – 22nd November 2024
Washingborough Academy and Meritton British International School in Chiang Mai, Thailand, came together to celebrate International Education Week. Both schools dedicated the week to exploring and celebrating the beauty and importance of languages.
Throughout the week, students from both schools engaged in activities that highlighted the rich diversity of languages and cultures. As part of this celebration, videos and work created by the students were shared between the schools, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of the different languages spoken around the world.
This partnership provided a unique opportunity for students to connect, collaborate, and learn about one another’s cultures, building bridges through the universal language of education.
It was a wonderful global celebration of language, and the creativity and enthusiasm of all the students involved were truly inspiring!
Please click the link below to view the cultural exchange between children from both countries:
https://sway.cloud.microsoft/pIFU3Y2G8SDXoz5F?ref=Link
Learn 4 Earth
Learn4Earth is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership which includes 9 partners in total, representing 5 European countries – Denmark, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy. Through the Learn4Earth project we will working with our international partners to raise the overall awareness about environmental and climate change challenges for pupils in European schools.
Key Objectives:
- To develop key competencies in various sustainability-relevant subjects
- To support the testing of innovative practices to prepare children to become true factors of change
- To enhance teachers’ education and continuous professional development by developing innovative interdisciplinary teaching approaches and promote and support competence-oriented teaching and learning within the fields of Climate, Environment and Food
- To enable behavioural changes for children and their food preferences, consumption habits and lifestyles through education and training
Please visit the project website to learn more:
Learn 4 Earth – Guardians of the Earth
DEMETER – Developing Interdisciplinary Methodologies in Education Through Enhanced Relationships between schools and farms
The DEMETER project is an Erasmus+ partnership and is a collaboration between schools, representatives of farmers, and institutions aimed at analysing the practices already existing and for the first time will develop a coherent and structured interdisciplinary methodology that will link the subjects taught in primary schools to learning activities carried out in farms or with the help of farmers. The benefit of the research and development in this field are several: equipping teachers with innovative tools, increasing collaboration between education and business sector, increase collaboration among teacher’s different subject at school and further fostering local development.
Please visit the project website to learn more:
Sustainable Future – Learning from Life to Life!
Learning from Life to Life is an Erasmus+ project with the objective to give knowledge to teachers about healthy living, recycling and saving environmental resources. The main goal of this project is the sharing of information and knowledge about environmental education and sustainable future throughout Europe and to inspire and empower pupils.
The participants in this project involve schools in Finland, Czech Republic and Slovenia. Approximately 880 children and 150 personnel will benefit indirectly from the activities organised by the project. There are six main themes that are being covered by the project: Food Education, Recycling and Sorting, Waste handling and Energy production, Saving Energy, Water and Climate warming.
Please click on the link below to see some of our work relating to this project:
Digital Food Education
Digital Food Education is an EU Erasmus+ funded project that aims to enable schools and teachers to access training resources remotely through digital tools. Together, working with partners from the Soil Association, UK and consultancies in Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia, we will explore the ‘why’ and ‘how’ teachers should equip themselves with digital competences, create online training in food education, share good practice of digital food education and resources and produce an online platform that can be shared and accessed more widely.
There are four outputs for this project:
IO1 – Support for teachers in adapting to online training and education
IO2 – Food education online training resources
IO3 – Demonstrating innovation and digital best practice
IO4 – E-learning portal adapted to partner countries and languages
Find out more at digitalfoodeducation.eu
