During the first week of term Bishop Challoner staff Ciara Tidy and James Johnston visited Ng’ombe Community School in Lusaka, Zambia to help foster a dialogue between students as part of the British Council Connecting Classrooms scheme.
Throughout the week the students wrote letters to each other and completed a joint art project about their local communities. The finished artworks now hang on the walls of both schools. There was a joint song recorded in different countries by the Bishop Challoner Jazz band and drummers from Ng’ombe and a prayer was written collaboratively by both schools which was said together at the same time (after calculating time zones) on the Friday.
There were regular Skype calls where students talked to each other in person and had the chance to give each other tours of their respective schools. A particularly wonderful moment was seeing Year 11 girls dancing via video link to drummers from Zambia during a Skype conversation.
Throughout the week the Ng’ombe students were taught to use Twitter on an iPad, so that both schools could communicate directly with each other on a joint account viewable to the public. This has continued since as the main aim of the trip was to start a dialogue that would be sustainable and continue long after the Bishop Challoner staff had left.
There was a real buzz around both schools during the week and it really built on a trip that teachers Carly Ciake and Leah Dixon made to the school last year. The hope for the future is to host a teacher from Ng’ombe at Bishop Challoner.
We encourage everyone to follow the twitter and see the project develop at www.twitter.com/zocsmeetsbishop
Catherine Changai, Head of N’gombe Open Community School says: ‘We’re very grateful for what our friends in Britain are doing thinking of us. You’ve brought happiness to these children and made them into leaders!’
Cecilia, a student from Ng’ombe says: ‘The communication is incredible! We used letters, artwork and an iPad to communicate on Twitter. I was so excited, these were ‘first time’ things!’
James Johnston, Communications Officer at Bishop Challoner Says: We were adamant that this would be a fully collaborative week, and one that both schools would benefit from equally. This was a hugely successful trip, confirmed by the fact that both schools are still talking to each other. Showing two school communicates a window into each other really made the world a little smaller for all students involved.
