William Barnes Awarded the International School Award

The staff and governors at William Barnes Primary school in Sturminster Newton were proud to receive the Foundation level of the British Council’s prestigious International Award in recognition of its work to ‘bring the world into the classroom’. The International School Award celebrates the achievements of schools that do exceptional work in international education. Fostering an international dimension in the curriculum is at the heart of the Bristish Council’s work with schools, so young people gain the cultural understanding and skills they need for today’s world.

William Barnes’ international work includes embedding aspects of Global Learning and Citizenship into our everyday classroom teaching and having a whole school focus on three of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals – Good Health and Well Being, Responsible Consumption and Production and Life on Land, leading to a number of projects that are currently running in school. In the last two years, some of the highlights of our Global Learning have been:

• Year 6 Malala Day – the children are inspired by Nobel prize winning educational activist from Pakistan and raise money to support her foundation.

• Year 5 children learn about the impact of tourism and global warming on the small Himalayan region of Ladakh in Northern India and its fragile environment.

• Year 4 Plogging – picking up litter around the school environment while raising fitness levels, learning about the impact of litter on local, national and global environments and learning about how the problem is being tackled.

• Connecting with an international school through the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms scheme, originally with a school in Nepal.

• Reducing single use plastic waste in school using the Terracycle scheme, changing from plastic straws for school milk and reducing laminated plastic being used in school.