Ribblesdale Goes International!

Ribblesdale High School took on the role of “mine host” yesterday as 130 delegates from three schools from Europe arrived at the school on to join forces to practice for a major song and dance show on Saturday. The EU funded COMENIUS ( Comenius was an amazing and prolific educator, and has been stamped “The Father of Modern Education”. He was born on March 28, 1592) project, has attracted local and national attention, with the BBC asending Radio Lancashire crew to broadcast from The Grand during rehearsals.

Senior Managers and Music teachers from the following schools joined Ribblesdale Deputy Mr Davidson and Music Teacher Miss Mason to oversee the pupils working together for the big event on Saturday which is the finale form a project which was first thought of way back in 2007/ for the two year project.

• SCHOOL – MARIENSCHULE, HILDERSHEIM – GERMANY
• SCHOOL – IL DE ALMA, GRANADA – SPAIN
• SCHOOL – LYCEE, MAZAMET – FRANCE

The two year project l saw pupils and staff becoming involved as all the partner schools collaborate in a cross European project to deliver a European Night of Music and Dance. The end performance and crescendo of the project is on Saturday the Grand Theatre. To add curriculum enrichment to the process and events, hospitality and catering pupils are creating and serving a Lancashire Hot Pot supper in school to-night at 6.30 where all pupils, host families and staff will come together and get to know each other.

Commenting on this new aspect of curriculum development for the school, Mr Davidson said that it was part of the schools ever developing learning and teaching agenda to enhance learning opportunities for it’s pupils. “ We are always looking to do things differently in order to raise our standards and raise pupil achievement. By adding an international dimension to our work we are offering our pupils a relevant and motivating curriculum which will challenge, stretch and engage. It also shows that learning should be an enjoyable and interesting experience”

International work is becoming an important element in several curriculum areas and has driven the school towards the coveted International Schools Award. Mr Davidson stated that “In 2007 II set the school a target of three years to gain the ISA and to be honest I think we hit that target 1 year in advance. The school has over the past couple of years been very innovative. “We have flown GCSE Spanish language students into a Spanish village for three days of activities to raise standards in Spanish, taken over Italian and Spanish restaurants, had web cam communication with a school in Egypt, developed a Year 8 project with New Delhi High School, visited Autswich, visited Villa Real FC in Spain, taken Year 7 to Spain and France, offered the annual ski trip to Italy and now this major Comenius project. Added to this, future curriculum links with Latvia then we are doing more than enough to justify gaining the award. The staff are fully committed and we have already seen that these links are having such a positive impact on learning, community cohesion and pupil motivation”

The Grand is the epicenter for this project and everyone is welcome to come along on Saturday. There will be two performances at 4pm and 7pm and tickets are on sale at The Grand and at school. Tickets are £5 adult £3 children.

Education for Comenius stretches beyond the boundaries of the classroom and encompasses all of life.

Mr Davidson paid warm tribute to Miss Mason, Mrs Turner, Mrs Burgess and Mrs Smith for their support of the project pupils, their professionalism and their hard work and full commitment. “We are lucky to have such dedicated professionals in school who make things look easy, but behind the scenes are literally hours and hours of hard graft” they are to be praised from the top of Pendle Hill for their commitment and honest endevours. “They really are talented people. The pupils love them as people and as their teachers and helpers. They are brilliant” he said.

He also said that the whole school should be really proud of the way the whole staff. parents and student population has got behind the project to make a/ the visitors welcome and b/ showed support for the project itself.

Thank you to everyone!