Page 25 - link magazine

Spanish exchange creates new inter-cultural links

In September a group of Spanish students and their teachers visited Greendown as part of the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and
Exchange's Socrates Lingua E Programme in which European funding is available to schools who work on a Joint Educational Project (JEP)
together which encourages the linguistic abilities of students.
Pupils at Gabriel Mirb School in Orihuela,
near Alicante, Spain and Greendown have
been working together over the last two
years on their project's theme, `What do we
have in common with young people our
own age in Spain?"
A number of topics have been covered
commencing with the World Cup back in
June 1997, fashion, food, sports, pop music,
town, art etc and a display of all the JEP
works to date was held towards the end of
the first leg of the exchange, for students
and their families. We were also treated to
an exciting performance of Spanish singing
and flamenco dance.
Colleagues from other curriculum areas
became involved in the JEP and the Spanish
students were particularly thrilled with the
Shakespeare workshop they took part in.
The De Vere Hotel very kindly hosted the
Spanish teachers at greatly reduced rates in
support of the project which made accessi-
bility much easier for them.
A full programme of visits and activities
was enjoyed by all, culminating in an end of
exchange party at one of the host pupil's
houses in which both groups of students
and their friends used their language skills
to share their knowledge of Salsa, Merengue at a last day presentation in early October
i
and break dancing, not to mention juggling
and fire throwing. New Due to recent national curricu- Initially GCSE students will be
The first half of the exchange was very lum requirements, the Green- using image manipulation soft-
successful and the Spanish students and computer down art department has opened ware such as Adobe Photoshop
their teachers reluctantly departed for home. a new information technology and Photo-Deluxe to modify and
We very much look forward to making the art course area. Mrs Emma Barnes has been change original art and design
return visit when our pupils go to Spain on appointed to implement the use work.
23 October. of IT with art. Mrs Barnes hopes that students
will learn to appreciate informa-
tion technology as another tool
Banner celebrates fifteenth year for Oliver Tomkins within the art room.
"As a department we hope to
Church of England Infants School use the new IT suite to its , full
potential across all age groups".
Greendown's links with part- At a later stage the art depart-
ner primary schools in West Swin- ment intends to combine desk
don have always been strong, with top publishing with student work
many projects being shared. to produce its own marketing ma-
A particularly interesting one terial.
took place earlier this year, when Art teacher Emma Barnes with year
a group of GCSE textile students
10 students Jess Soane and Sam
at Greendown created a banner Bennett
in recognition of the fifteenth
anniversary of Oliver Tomkins In-
fants School.
The girls researched details of
the school's history and church
connection. They worked with
some of the infants to decide the
motifs and the youngsters helped
cut out the shapes for our stu-
dents to apply.
Oliver Tomkins Infants head-
teacher Penny Summers was de-
lighted to receive the banner at a The Bishop of Swindon Rev. Michael Doe and former headteacher
special dedication assembly, and Margaret Williams display the banner with children from Greendown
it now hangs in the school hall and Oliver Tomkins. Design teachers Sue Clack and Alison Godfrey,
where all the children can see it. rear, with Oliver Tomkins head Penny Summers