Building Learning Communities

Plotting a course for the future

The Learning and Curriculum team welcomed visitors from HØjby Skole (age group 6-16) in Odense, Denmark this week. http://www.hoejbyskole.odense.dk

Niels (Head teacher), Peter (Senior Leader), and Allan (Senior Technician) wrote to us requesting a visit after they had heard positive things about Bradford’s Curriculum ICT team and the bMobLe Conference whilst they were at the BETT Show in London in 2010. They subsequently visited our web sites and blogs to read more about some of our innovative projects and became members of our professional network on Twitter.

They were particularly keen to come to Bradford so that they could learn from us about how we organise Teachmeets for action-led CPD, design outdoor learning trails using Geocaching, support struggling readers using Kindles, and encourage cooperative learning using portable AfL technologies such as visualisers, iPods and personal response systems. Some of these tools, techniques and pedagogies do not currently exist in Denmark on any significant scale and they are keen to trial them in their own school communities.

We took them to Cavendish Primary School to observe a Year 5 and Year 6 ‘every child a blogger’ project and the school’s use of iPads across the curriculum with younger students.  The school tour was facilitated by Cavendish’s Deputy Head teacher Jonathan Nixon. The Danish teachers were very grateful for this opportunity, and there is now talk of a reciprocal visit to Denmark to visit HØjby Skole so that we can learn from them, and also help them to implement Geocaching in some of the coastal regions around Odense and Copenhagen.