Our International Links

At Reepham Primary School, due to the demographics of our local area, our children have very little experience of different races, ethnicities, and cultures. One of our key aims is to ensure that our children develop a knowledge of how people in other countries and from different cultures live, understanding our similarities and celebrating our differences.

The partnership we have with our international link schools really helps to broaden our pupils’ horizons.

In 2008 we established links with the Sakado Azuma Kindergarten in the Saitama Prefecture in Japan, and in 2012 with the Tapezana Primary School in the Dedza region of Malawi. Our French link school, Ecole Jules Ferry in Bagnères de Bigorres, was established in 2012. Our aim with these link schools is that our children learn about different cultures and locations around the world, improving their understanding of global citizenship.

Each year we dedicate three curriculum weeks to learning about Japan, Malawi and France. The children’s learning builds year on year, so that when they leave us, they should have an excellent understanding of Japan, Malawi and France’s geography and cultures, including the similarities and differences to our own geography and culture.

With the Sakado Azuma Kindergarten, our children also learn from exchanging letters, cards, and sharing videos, stories and songs. We are visited each year by the teachers from Japan, who spend time in school with each class teaching them directly about an aspect of Japanese culture. Our children benefit by seeing and understanding the friendships that are built up across the world – they begin to recognise that a language barrier and thousands of miles distance does not stop the formation of friendships and strong partnerships. Each year the Sakado Azuma Kindergarten also invites a representative from Reepham for a week so that we can teach their pupils, as well as build our own knowledge of Japan. Currently seven of our team have visited Sakado Azuma Kindergarten. Our children at Reepham are building these relationships with our Japanese friends, and they are also already talking about a passion to travel and visit Japan when they are older.

Our partnership with Tapezana Primary School has been facilitated by the Norfolk Dedza Partnership, largely funded by the British Council. With this partnership we work on a joint project with Tapezana and a few other schools in Dedza, focussing on some of the key issues in education. Our work is collated and shared across the whole partnership so that we can learn from each other. We were visited by the Headteacher of Tapezana back in 2019, and two of our team returned the visit to learn about Tapezana School. When finances allow, we hope to repeat these visits in order to build on our understanding to share with our pupils. Currently one member of our team has visited Malawi, and this experience fascinates our pupils. During our Malawi week each year, we are also visited by representatives from the Norfolk Dedza Partnership who teach our children about school and life in Malawi.

Our long-standing School Link with Ecole Jules Ferry in Bagnères de Bigorres has seen us host two visits from our French colleagues, whilst one of our teachers has regularly visited their school. We exchange cards and letters with our French friends, whilst our older children make and exchange videos and teach each other games via these videos. We also have an annual pancake day project, where the children share and exchange data about their pancake races to be analysed in Maths lessons. Our children have had Zoom conversations with the French children too, to practise their language skills.