Partnership stories:

Be inspired by this selection of short case studies, which demonstrate just some of the different ways in which Connecting Classrooms is having an impact on schools, learners, teachers, school leaders and communities in countries around the world.

News, resources and project ideas:

Olympic Dreams School Search: The British Council has partnered with BBC World Class to twin schools in the UK with schools attended by World Olympic Dreams athletes around the world. Teachers and students from the winning schools met for the first time at an event in London in January to start to plan projects together. Find out more about the project and how the partnerships are progressing on the World Class website.

Students from Taiwan, South Korea and the UK met in Nottingham, UK, in October 2010 for a trilateral youth summit. By the end of the visit, all the participating students had learnt a lot about each other's cultures, improved their communication and language skills, and made firm friends. A teacher from Taipei County recorded the experience and posted this short video clip on YouTube.

Afghan musicians visit English schools: Read about musicians from Herat, the cultural capital of Afghanistan, who have been touring some of the 30 UK schools that have Connecting Classrooms partner schools in Afghanistan to perform traditional Afghan songs and hold music workshops with pupils.

Letter from Pakistan: In this article, a headteacher from Pakistan talks about the school education system in Pakistan and how a Connecting Classrooms partnership with Wales has introduced an awareness of different learning and teaching styles to the school, which complements the drive within Pakistan for teachers to employ different methodologies in the classroom. The article is featured in the summer 2010 issue of Make the Grade, the journal of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. (Scroll to page 34.)

Community cohesion through school partnerships: Filmed by Teachers TV, these two 15-minute television programmes focus on schools in Hampshire and Bradford that are using their Connecting Classrooms partnerships to address different issues around community cohesion. To view the programmes, click on the link above and scroll down to the programmes called 'Community Cohesion through School Partnerships - Rural Challenges', and 'Community Cohesion through School Partnerships - City Challenges'.

World Cup photo album: During the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, we worked with BBC World Class to celebrate the World Cup by creating this giant online photo album of school football teams from around the world.

We supported Big Dance 2010 in July 2010 by inviting students and teachers in schools around the world to do 20 minutes of extra dance or physical activity each day during Big Dance week (in the UK) and to participate in a Guinness World Record attempt on 9 July. Find out more in the Big Dance section of the Connecting Classrooms online community.

100 Words is a project in which students write short plays that capture the essence of a language and culture using just a hundred words. In early 2010 we ran a 100 Words competition for schools linked through Connecting Classrooms in Algeria, Bangladesh and the UK. Young people from the four winning schools met in London in March to produce a series of tri-lingual plays in Bengali, French and English. Watch their performances in this short video clip.

Read an article in the Times Educational Supplement about schools in Afghanistan, England, Finland and Scotland that have been working together through the Connecting Classrooms and eTwinning programmes to pioneer an innovative approach to international student collaboration using mobile phone technology, with support from Nokia.

Download the BBC World Class ‘Welcome’ pack, which suggests activities and ideas for schools in the UK and Arab world that are starting to work together. The pack is inspired by the ‘Syrian School’ television series which was broadcast in the UK in February and March 2010, on BBC Four.

Download the BBC World Class Share a Story: This Morning I Met a Whale resource pack, based on the book by Michael Morpurgo, to help your students explore the themes of climate change and the environment and share ideas with your partner school.

Climate Change Interactive: Through this interactive map, the British Council and BBC World Class worked with schools around the world to give young people an opportunity to share their views and experiences of climate change during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, December 7-18.

Hunger to learn: Laile, a 13 year-old student participating in Connecting Classrooms in Bangladesh, explains why school is important to her, as part of the BBC's Hunger to Learn project. (Scroll down the page to read Laile's story.)

School leadership in Latin America and the UK: Filmed by Teachers TV, these eight 15-minute television programmes tell the stories of schools in the UK and Latin America that have been working together through Connecting Classrooms.

Listen to what Lizzie Mbakwe, a teacher at Norma Road Primary school in Nigeria has to say about her school's Connecting Classrooms partnership and how it has benefited the children in her school, in a film produced by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (on YouTube).