Hoe Valley School were delighted to be awarded International Schools Status Foundation Stage in September 2021 and to have recently progressed to Intermediate Stage in January 2023.
This is a prestigious and well respected award that recognises schools that have shown a commitment to embedding international awareness and understanding within their class or school. The International Schools Status fully supports our Work Ready ethos and enables all of our students to broaden cultural understanding and develop the relevant skills in order to live and work as global citizens.
Our current partnerships:
Humboldt Gymnasium Cologne, Germany
Gymnasium Verl, Bielefeld, Germany
Our students have enjoyed a PenPal project where they have been writing to students from our partner schools in Germany. They were able to to meet their PenPals virtually on Zoom just before Christmas to find out more about the similarities and differences in the ways in which we celebrate the festive period. Our students have also taken part in a joint Zoom Christmas Concert with our partner schools.
We were pleased to receive the following feedback from the British Council – ‘Hoe Valley School has successfully met the criteria for the International School Intermediate Award. You have active partnerships with two German schools and have provided excellent opportunities for your students to communicate with their German peers. The Zoom Christmas event must have thrilled everyone involved and would have inspired many students to get more engaged with your international projects’
Next stages:
International Schools Working Party – to review international work already going on in schools.
To launch new projects which move beyond MFL and become more cross-curricular.
We are aiming to offer more cross-curricular opportunities to involve all students in school, whether or not they take a language at GCSE or A-Level. The British Council have suggested we focus on UN Global Goals, such as pollution reduction and Fairtrade.
What have we been doing in school?