Bickleigh+Downs+-+UK

Dear Sir/Madam, Greetings from the U.K.! My name is Adam Jensen, and I am a full time teacher within Bickleigh Down Primary School in England. I have seen your profile on the Global Gateway website, and was wondering if you would like to establish a link with my school. At present, the school is currently on their summer holidays, and will be returning during the first week of September. Therefore this is an ideal opportunity to get to know each other if you would like to create a partnership between our two schools. Our school is large in comparison to those in the local area, but is very well funded. Our school is situated in a relatively new part of Plymouth that enjoys a wonderful environment, community and team ethos. We have just under 400 children in our care. However, we have lots of full time teachers, and so class sizes are quite small (approximately 25 and much lower in the earlier years). The school serves the needs of children from the beginning of their school career (at the age of 4 years) until their transfer to secondary school (when they are 11 years of age). Partnership between school and home forms a vital part of any child’s education, and special care is taken to ensure that a child’s individual needs are met and his/her interests and abilities developed in full.

We provide a welcoming, happy and safe environment in which all members of our school family can feel secure and valued.

We aim to: - - Welcome people from different cultural and/or religious backgrounds and teach children to respect the beliefs of others and value diversity.

- Create a committed, harmonious community who actively promote trust and respect for one another.

- Actively remove barriers to learning and participation, valuing the individuality of all in our community.

- Provide an effective and inspiring learning environment in which children feel motivated, confident and supported to explore choices and achieve their full potential.

- Promote confidence and self-esteem within the school family, in order that children become responsible, independent and life long learners.

- Have high expectations of behaviour, attitude and attainment.

- Develop an understanding of the wider world, enabling pupils to take an active and useful role within society with confidence, consideration and self-discipline.

We are on the outskirts of Plymouth, a city which is rich in culture and historical importance. We are proud of our school, what it achieves, and the enthusiasm that our learners have. It therefore wishes to build upon this excellence in light of a wider world community and share and enrich experiences from children all around the globe.

We would like to, in the first instance, build a relationship with: - a class or classes which comprise of any primary aged children (5 to 11 years old)

- a class who ****may**** be able to communicate via e-mail, in English (children in our school are given the option to learn French or Spanish but will not be able to communicate effectively in this language at the age we would like the pen pal exchange to take place)

- a school that can offer video conferencing possibilities to us

- children who are enthusiastic about sharing their experiences, especially mathematical, and culture with thoughtful, passionate, kind and ambitious English children aged between 5 and 11 years old

- a school that wishes to participate in a long term relationship with a very successful English school

You can find out more about our school, and about this opportunity in particular by searching the Global Gateway website for bickleigh. Please do not confuse us with a school of a very similar name in Exeter, U.K.! For your convenience, we have copied some of the information for you to read below: Current projects We are planning, starting in September for one year, to teach mathematics lessons in conjunction with another U.K., or international, school. We would love to share our work through webcams. All of our Key Stage 2 class rooms (which cater for our 7 to 11 year olds) have interactive whiteboards with internet access. Our mathematics specialist releases different class teachers for an hour a week each, and at this time we want to partner with another school in order to carry our some problem solving mathematics activities. This will bring life into mathematics and help both classes of children to think carefully about what they have done and how they can communicate this. Is your school enthusastic about such a link? We are flexible about the age of the children who participate and also the timing of the lessons. Please contact adamdjensen@hotmail.com for further information, and not the school directly, because we are closed for the summer and wish to start the partnership as soon as possible after the children return in September Greetings from Bickleigh Down Primary School, U.K.! Bickleigh Down Primary School would love to further its international links by partnering with another U.K., or international, school. We hope that this school will be able to set up video conferencing with us, for use by primary school children (of any year group - 5 to 11 years old). We are a relatively large school, with two parallel year classes and have two fully qualified teachers who release staff for planning, preparation and assessment for various times during the week. These qualified teachers teach mathematics and music to the children. Therefore, a particular area that we would love to focus on would be in the area of mathematics. For your information, the timing of the lessons will also be arranged to your convenience. Would your school have the ambition to offer a creative and 'problem solving' mathematics curriculum with us? If you can offer the ability to teach a mathematics lesson with a specialist in our school (through web cams) then please contact us using the e-mail address below. Since the school is currently closed for the summer, please contact adamdjensen@hotmail.com with any possibilities that your school might be able to offer us. Adam is the mathematics teacher who will be organising this (hopefully mathematical) partnership! Alternatively, you can find out about a class that I have just stopped teaching (7/8 year olds) at [|www.year3.tk], or about our school at [|www.bickleighdown.devon.sch.uk]. However, please do not e-mail the school because no one will answer - it is our holidays! Please use adamdjensen@hotmail.com, as I am more than willing to communicate with schools so that we get the best possible partnership! We have had continued success with linking with a class in another school in Uganda over the past year, although this school can not support us in the technology that we need to talk face-to-face (I will be visiting this school in October to donate items to the school in order to help them with this). Therefore we are very enthusiastic about long term partnerships that benefit both schools. I hope that I have clearly explained about our school and the opportunities that it creates. If you have any further questions, or you would like to build a partnership such as this please e-mail me as soon as possible. In the meantime, I wish you and your school every possible success in the future. I look forward to hearing from you! With kind regards,
 * As for myself, I teach all classes mathematics (on a rota basis) in order to give some of the other class teachers time to mark books and prepare for their next lessons. During this time we would love to link up with a school and teach mathematics together. Being a specialist in this field, I know how important it is to see how different people approach mathematical problems, and how different teaching gives different results. I will be able to provide detailed planning, or help with planning lessons together, to teachers involved in this program and even talk to them about the lesson beforehand if this would be helpful to your school. Our ideal school would provide us with an opportunity to talk face-to-face between classes, and do the same lesson at the same time - in order to see if the children come up with different solutions!****
 * Mathematics through webcams****
 * About our school****

Adam Jensen Class teacher, Bickleigh Down Primary School, England.

//**//**Adam Jensen**//**//
 * BEd (Hons) Prim Ma RSA Dip IT****
 * Visit my personal website at**** [|****www.adamdjensen.tk****]****!****
 * Help to support disadvantaged women and children in Uganda by visiting my charity -**** [|****www.skinproject.tk****]
 * The class that I teach has published a website...so what are you waiting for?**** [|****www.year3.tk****] ****:)****
 * Discover how to enrich the primary and secondary school curriculum with ICT in your school right now!**** [|****www.adamj.ik.org****]