UNITED in Diversity – the ground-breaking Erasmus+ funded project involving King’s Ely, IES Andrés Vandelvira in Albacete, Spain and Collège de la Chaloupe Saint-Leu in La Reunion, France – has won another award.

It was announced on October 30th that the project has secured a European Quality Label, which comes just weeks after it won a British Council eTwinning National Award in recognition of its “outstanding contribution to international school collaboration”.

A European Quality Label is granted to teachers who run “excellent eTwinning projects” and indicates that the project has reached an “exceptional national and European standard”.

United in Diversity has involved Year 9 and 10 students at King’s Ely Senior. The school’s Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) department was successful in securing a Language Erasmus+ Project Grant from the British Council and European Commission to deliver the project alongside students and staff from IES Andrés Vandelvira and College Chaloupe Saint-Leu.

Since the project went live, Esmeralda Salgado, Head of MFL at King’s Ely, and her team have been instrumental in organising two phenomenally successful exchange trips to both partner schools. As well as the exchange trips, the project has seen King’s Ely students working collaboratively with their overseas partners, including on the production of a video diary in the target language exploring a particular festival which represents the culture of the visiting country.

The culmination of the project was when the French and Spanish schools visited King’s Ely in June this year in order to take part, together with King’s Ely students, in a series of workshops with the aim to design a multilingual, promotional video celebrating the heritage of all countries involved in the project in the context of Europe.

Mrs Salgado said: “I cannot put into words what a fantastic impact the United in Diversity project has had on our students and the whole King’s Ely community. The project has not only enabled our students to improve their linguistic skills because all activities were conducted in French and Spanish, but they have also developed their ICT skills and genuinely fostered a love for cultural differences and tolerance.

“During their visits to La Reunion and Albacete, our students spent most of their time whilst at the French and Spanish schools carrying out their video diaries via workshops. They also got to experience festivals first hand and undertook a number of day trips to emblematic historical or geographical places. As a school, we are so honoured to have been given the opportunity to deliver this project, which echoes the MFL department’s mission to take languages outside the classroom.”

Congratulations to everyone involved!

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