Learning World

Teachers get African reward
Congratulations to the hundreds of headteachers, teachers and teaching assistants who were celebrated for their outstanding services to education at the Teaching Awards 2004 regional ceremonies in June. And good luck, too, to the 146 winners who now have a chance to scoop the national award in their category at the televised Teaching Awards 2004 National Ceremony in London on 24 October this year.

To celebrate their achievements, the British Council’s 70th birthday, and 10 years of democracy in South Africa, the Council is delighted to award all Regional and Category Winners of the School and Community Involvement Award a special one-week educational visit to South Africa.

All 11 winners will get the chance to look at how links have been forged between schools and their local communities, as well as gain new insights into areas of teaching such as citizenship.

Set up in 1998 to recognise the outstanding achievements of the teaching profession, the Teaching Awards are managed by the Teaching Awards Trust, an independent charity.

For more information, and to find out how to make nominations for 2005, visit the Teaching Awards website.

Desert treasures come to the UK
The rich and diverse cultures of the Sudan comes to the British Museum this autumn with a special exhibition entitled Sudan: Ancient Treasures. It’s a fantastic opportunity for  teachers and pupils alike to see a selection of the finest antiquities from the magnificent collections of the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum.

The British Council in Khartoum works closely with the British Museum, assisting in its work of exploring and providing access to the country’s numerous archaeological sites and ancient artefacts – many of great historical importance, not to mention outstanding aesthetic quality.

The exhibition runs from 9 September 2004 until 9 January 2005. For more details, visit the British Museum website.

World Champions
Get out those diaries: the annual British Council Education and Training Group Conference will take place at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster on 18 November. Entitled ‘World Champions: using sport and international awareness to develop skills for 14-19 year olds’, it will focus on delivering skills for a global economy through sport. Visit the conference website or e-mail worldchampions@britishcouncil.org

TES’s Go Global rides again
Come 12 November, don’t miss the second edition of the TES’s supplement Go Global,  produced in partnership with the British Council. This issue’s packed with useful information relating to the international dimension in education.

Visas for Europe update
Non-EU national pupils taking part in school trips within the EU can use a special ‘List of Travellers’ form instead of a visa. It’s only available from the British Council Information Centre – for more details, call 0161 957 7755, or e-mail general.enquiries@britishcouncil.org

EU-Japan exchanges
2005 has been designated the EU-Japan Year of People to People Exchanges. Activities will include face-to-face exchanges, as well as events and initiatives to promote a better mutual understanding of European and Japanese society and culture. Programmes cover a wide range of sectors, including education, culture and art.

For more details, visit the EU's relations with Japan website.

New Europe, new Cardiff
Pupils at Cardiff’s Riverbank School enjoyed a visit from Caroline Flint MP, Minister at the Home Office, on 16 June this year. Riverbank, which specialises in teaching pupils with severe learning difficulties, is sharing opportunities with partners in New Europe. Through a Comenius 1 school project, pupils have been able to forge links with schools from France, Hungary and Poland.

More language classes, please!
‘We believe that learning languages as early as possible is the crux, because children with languages are the key to the future, the Government should be encouraging language learning to be continued to university level, and then on to teaching.’

That’s what British students of German and German students of English said at the firstUK-German education policy seminar in Berlin in January 2004. The British Council, along with the British Embassy, invited 30 experts and 30 young people to share findings and, ultimately, to suggest paths leading to more students learning foreign languages. Baroness Catherine Ashton (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Extended and Inclusive Schools) went to Berlin to open the series.

With this initiative, the British Council is adding an international aspect to the topical debate on education reform in Germany.

A seminar in November will be dealing with Ethnicity and Diversity in Schools. For further details on this and other upcoming seminars, visit the British Council Germany website.

Mandarin for all
Is Mandarin Chinese one of the subjects you teach? Then the good news is that the Association for Language Learning (ALL) have established a Mandarin Chinese Special Interest Group (SIG), which aims to promote the teaching of Mandarin in mainstream UK schools, community schools and adult education classes alike. ALL welcomes any teachers or tutors of Mandarin to join the Association, and contribute to the work in promoting the language and raising the profile of Mandarin language teaching and learning opportunities. E-mail: info@ALL-languages.org.uk

ALL also run a discussion forum for teachers and would-be teachers of Mandarin, which acts as a support network and provides useful information and possible training opportunities. For more details, visit the JISCmail website.

Schools needed for Pakistan link
Montage can ‘help remove misconceptions about each other’ – just one of many illuminating remarks made by students during a recent MontagePakistan project. Initiated in January 2004 as part of Montageworld, a web-based programme of curriculum projects which encourages international communication between pupils, MontagePakistan aims to promote sustainable cross-cultural interaction between students and teachers in Pakistan and the UK.

The project would like to hear from more UK schools who are interested in forming creative links and meaningful partnerships with schools in Pakistan. Projects can cover a wide range of subjects such as the environment, civics, sports, arts, theatre, music, culture and mathematics, and are often cross-curricular.

E-mail Abu Rehan on abu.rehan@britishcouncil.org or visit the Montage Pakistan