HOW IT WORKS
Step 1: Assessing the Need and Plan
Before setting out to source a sister school partnership, it is important to think through what you want from a sister school partnership. As with all partnerships, it is important to nurture your sister school partnership and be realistic about what can be achieved in the short term. Before starting a partnership, ensure that you are clear about the time commitment and level of activity involved.
Wether you want your staff and students to develop cultural knowledge and intercultural understanding; or you want the sister school partnership to enhance the language learning of your students; or you want to provide our students and staff with opportunities to interact with people from other cultures, a careful consideration and planning is fundamental to a successful and sustained sister school partnerships.
Step 2: Finding the Right Partner
Once we receive your clear instruction and the required information of your school, we will start the process of researching through our professional networks by auditing each potential candidate and their curriculum to ensure that international content and perspectives are included and embedded.
The research of our professional team and the effectiveness of our communication network will help to resolve the conflict of interests and overcome cross-cultural barriers.
Step 3: Establishing Contact
After we locate the potential school partner, an introductory letter from the Principal will be sent by our team accompanied by an information package including your school profile.
Once the initial communication is exchanged, you need to agree on the frequency of communication, whether it’s by email, or other online form. Detailed information sharing around ICT capabilities and time tables can also take place here, particularly if you are partnering with a school in a different time zone. Keep to the agreed arrangement and be respectful always. It is important at this trust building stage.
While it is important to keep the momentum going, it is also important to be realistic and considerate about the turn-around time, especially when the term dates, public holidays and exam times are different.
Step 4: Formalising the Partnership
The signing provides the perfect opportunity to either visit your partner school or host a visit from your partner school. The ceremony has great symbolic value and holds both parties to account.
Some schools choose to arrange a fact finding trip to the partner school before a formal agreement is negotiated, or to negotiate the formal agreement while visiting. Others choose to reach a formal agreement first. Whether you want to start small or big, it is useful to have a written agreement or a MOU.
The written agreement should be simple but specific, with key outcomes and timelines. It is recommended to keep the agreement to a 3-5 year life, to allow revision to accommodate changed needs and expectations.
Step 5: Work with Your Partner
The rationale and focus for a school partnership is to enhance teaching and learning in both schools. This can be done most effectively through the planning, implementation and sharing of joint curriculum projects.
Sister school partnerships create many opportunities for authentic learning and teaching, and can make your curriculum come alive! By linking sister school partnership with the teaching and learning in your school, your sister school partnership is more likely to be sustained.
Projects can be specifically created for sister school collaboration or classroom curriculum can be integrated into the collaboration. Using a topic that students are already working on and expanding it into a global collaboration with sister school makes the work more engaging and authentic for students. Collaborating on the work with sister school provides the advantage of giving students access to differing points of view. This is a valuable experience and can help to build the intercultural understanding of students. This can be particularly effective when teachers provide scaffolding for students to reflect about their values and opinions and those of others.
The strategic approach includes consideration of links to school policy and goals, setting of priorities and linking the partnership to the school curriculum across year levels and learning domains. It includes a cohesive approach to planning, implementation and review. Many schools start by auditing the curriculum to identify existing content that would build students’ knowledge base and content that would facilitate the development of intercultural understanding of students. Most schools find the auditing and the subsequent adding of relevant content not only streamline the curriculum across the year levels, but also create an authentic opportunity to discuss issues and reach a common understanding of what intercultural understanding is and what sister schools can do to enhance student learning.
Many schools also use sister school partnership as an impetus to review language provision in the school.
Some schools choose to focus on teacher collaboration before venturing into full scale sister school activities. Effective teacher collaboration paves the way for student collaboration.
Classroom observation virtual or actual can be a good starting point for professional dialogues that can lead to in-depth discussion on various aspects of teaching and learning, including
• Curriculum and curriculum planning
• Assessment
• Pedagogy
It is beneficial to involve all year level teachers, or all faculty teachers in a lesson observation, so that common language and understanding can be developed in the post observation discussion. Common language and understanding is critical to ensure the success of curriculum collaboration and collaborative projects.
Step 6: Maintaining a Lang-lasting Educational Relationship
Regular, effective communication is the lifeblood of a school partnership. Yet this often proves to be the greatest challenge for schools, even more so when there are considerable differences in access to communications technology
Therefore, both partners are responsible for maintaining communication. It should not be the role of one school to initiate communication whenever the partnership wants to move forward.
Some schools prefer to do things quickly and adhere to a strict schedule, while others might be more relaxed about a delay. It is important each school is aware of the other’s concerns and assumptions.
Establishing a web of communication between head teachers, teachers and young people increases sustainability. The more links there are, the more likely the partnership will thrive.