Friday 8th September
We are very proud to announce that Hook Norton C of E Primary School is officially an ‘International School’, passing the International Schools Award which is now valid until 2020. The assessors were extremely impressed with our International work including last year’s international week, our ongoing Global Learning work and our link with École Louis Pasteur in Reuill-Malmaison, Paris. The centrepiece of our International Accreditation was of course our ERASMUS+ project work with Västra Parkskolan in Vara, Sweden, which was highly commended by the assessors:
“The exceptionalSwedish partnership does take centre stage.”
“Subjects are closely linked to give the children the best quality learning possible”.
The ERASMUS+ project
Our project with Västra Parkskolan is called Cre8. Our main aim is to develop children’s basic skills in Numeracy and Literacy through the use of entrepreneurial subprojects, which classes will be doing in collaboration with their Swedish counterparts. Our Owl Values are fundamental to our project aims. Here are some of the things we achieved in Term 6 of last year:
Swedish Exchange visit to Hook Norton
A group of 13Swedish students had the opportunity to come and visit us here in Hook Norton. They stayed with wonderful host families and enjoyed a very full timetable, making the most of their time here. The children enjoyed visiting their pen pals’ houses for tea, playing Skittles and Aunt Sally and having a barbecue at The Sun Inn, all organised by parents of Year 6 children.
Project Work
The Year 6 children worked together with their Swedish friends to design a product, thinking about their target audience, packaging, profit margins, advertisement and use of fairly sourced products. The children’s market research was extensive. First they tried different chocolates both from England and from Sweden, comparing and contrasting the taste, texture and length (it’s a tasting term!) of the chocolate. As you can imagine, this was hard work!
Cadbury’s World
As part of their research, the Swedish children visited a chocolate factory along with the Year 5 and 6 children to find out more about the chocolate business. They learnt about how the Cadbury family’s business grew from a small family shop to a huge global enterprise. They also learnt how chocolate was made, packaged and advertised. They used what they had learnt back at school. The Year 5 children (now Year 6) designed their own products, working out profit margins, designing packaging and making advertisements for their product. They sent some of their work to their Swedish friends to ask them which advert design they thought was the best. The Swedish children voted on their favourite design and sent back the results of the voting.
The Battery Project
The (now) Year 6 children heard all about their penpals’ latest project towards the end of last year. The Swedish classes created a bric-a-brac style sale at their school but instead of paying for items with money, members of the community were encouraged to pay in old expired batteries. The children used their new skills in creative advertising to advertise their sale and raise awareness of the dangers of putting batteries into landfill. One Year 5 student commented, “I think it’s a really good idea to help the environment. I didn’t know that you couldn’t put batteries in the bin.” Another Year 5 student added, “I would like to give our community a better understanding of why we should not put batteries into the waste bin.”
What’s next?
This year’s project combines entrepreneurial skills with looking after our environment. Children will be thinking about ways of recycling old fabrics during the Autumn term. We have a planning meeting in the diary for the Years 1, 2 and 3 teachers who will design a project with the Christmas Fair in mind.
We will be investing some of our ERASMUS+ funding into new resources for this project including some new sewing machines for Year 4, 5 and 6’s projects later in the year.
We have some provisional dates in mind for the Year 6 children to visit their penpals in Sweden and we also plan to host a group of Swedish children later in the year.
Thank you for taking an interest in our ERASMUS+ project. Your views on our project work are welcome, please email us on .