Teachers and students at King’s Ely have been celebrating after being awarded the highly regarded eTwinning prize for European collaboration in the National eTwinning Award Ceremony.

The project “Trails Around Europe” saw pupils across all key stages collaborating with schools from Greece, Estonia, Poland, Spain and France throughout the academic year. Pupils enjoyed reading and writing in the “travelling journals” corresponding with their European counterparts and learning together about each other’s customs and daily lives.

Comments from the judges were:

“A very well balanced and effective eTwinning project with great interactions between all the students in the project. There are many novel ideas such as travel journals and game development to engage in evaluation. The use of physical journals travelling round partners as well as electronic communication adds to the quality of the experience for the students. However the flexibility to respond with empathy to terrible events in a partner country clearly demonstrates the depth of the relationships of the students and the effectiveness of eTwinning to genuinely connect future generations.”

eTwinning, the digital community for schools involving almost 250,000 teachers in 32 countries across Europe, is funded by the European Commission as part of the Erasmus+ programme and managed in the UK by the British Council. The award ceremony recognises outstanding eTwinning projects which have been identified through the eTwinning pedagogical framework, the ‘Quality Label’.

Lorraine Oldham, teacher of modern foreign languages at King’s Ely, collected the award at the eTwinning National Conference in Nottingham and said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the prize for best collaboration. Everyone has enjoyed working with other schools and it has given a real sense of purpose to our work. To secure the National Quality Label and win a prize is a real honour for the students and teachers who participated in the project.”

Ruth Sinclair-Jones, UK National Agency Director for Erasmus+ and eTwinning, British Council, said: “We have a responsibility to prepare young people for life and work in our global society. Participation in eTwinning enables pupils to connect with others across Europe, share ideas across borders and develop as global citizens.”

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