It was
purely by chance that the friendship between Tuovila and Broadford primary
schools came about.
During a
visit to Vaasa to look at immersion
teaching in Finnish and Swedish I visited a number of schools and nurseries in
the city, with no plans for any visits elsewhere. However, the home of the then
Director of Education in Vaasa was in Mustasaari and he felt that to gain a balanced
view of immersion teaching he would arrange some visits for me in Mustasaari
kommune where I could see how language immersion worked in rural schools.
Two of the
schools I visited were in Helsingby and Tuovila and it was during the visit to
the latter that the idea of an international exchange was planted.
In the
beginning, the shared vision was simply one of a joint project with exchanges
of letters, faxes (there was no email in those days), photographs and artefacts
and it was not until I made a further
visit to Finland the following year that the concept of a
family-to-family exchange of pupils on a regular basis was hatched. The real
purpose of the 1998 visit was to set up an international project with a school
in Vaasa and another in Haparanda but this was to fail as the Swedish school
had to withdraw. However, during my stay in Tuovila we decided to float the
idea of a pupil exchange with parents in both school communities and so began a
connection which has now been firmly embedded in both schools’ forward planning
for the past eight years.
There have
now been four pupil exchanges between Broadford and Tuovila and as far as we
can gauge from the feedback from pupils and parents, these have been highly
successful, giving pupils who have been involved, unique insights into the
reality of living in our two countries and communities by allowing them to
experience them first-hand.
As well as
pupil exchanges between our two communities, we have formed links with schools
in other EU member states by inviting partners to join us in an international
education project through the Comenius scheme. This ran with varying degrees of
success for three years and made it possible for teachers and pupils from our
two schools to visit each other and also to visit and experience schools in the
mountains of north Greece and in the Basque Country of Spain.
The EU
project is now over but links still remain with the partner schools, with none
stronger than the link between Broadford and Tuovila where we are already
discussing the next (fifth) exchange which is planned for May/June 2007.
And not
only that !
We are also
already considering ways of marking the tenth year of international
co-operation between our two schools when the sixth exchange takes place in 2009.
Näin kirjoitti ystäväni ja kollegani 2006 onnitellessaan Tuovilan koulua 20 -vuotisjuhlien johdosta, Yhteistyö alkoi kirjeiden ja faxien lähettämisellä. Ensimmäisen vaihto-oppilas vierailun teimme viiden oppilaan ryhmällä toukokuussa 1999. Vierailua oli edeltänyt huoltajien aktiivinen varainkeruu. Ensimmäisen vierailun jälkeen aloimme suunnitella välittömästi seuraavaa vaihtoa. Hyvin harjoiteltu yhteistyö poiki myös Comenius -projektiin osallistumisen vuosina 2002-2004.Tärkeintä kansainvälisessä yhteistyössä on lähteä liikkeelle pienin askelin. Itsetarkoituksena ei voi eikä pidä olla ulkomaan matkat vaan tutustuminen kulttuuriin ja kieliin. Mikäli liikkuvuutta oppilaiden ja opettajien keskuudessa toteutetaan niin antaa osallistujilleen unohtumattomia kokemuksia ja elämämyksiä.