St Paul’s Primary School in Elswick, hosted a visit by Mayor of our twin city, Nancy in France, on 11th February. This is one of the many school partnerships that International Newcastle and the City Council is supporting between schools in both cities and one of 10 schools, which secured funding from the Turing Scheme to visit their partner schools this year.
St Paul’s has been working with their partner school, Marcel Leroy, since last year, exchanging Christmas cards, meeting online and singing songs and getting to know each other. They will be visiting their friends in Nancy in June and the Mayor has invited them to visit the Town Hall in Nancy as part of their trip.
Opening opportunties for young people
The Mayor of Nancy, Mathieu Klein, was delighted to visit St Paul’s, which he said exemplifies the key role of youth exchange and partnership as part of the twinning activities and deepening ties between Newcastle and Nancy. The children who will be visiting in June were keen to find out more about the city, the food and the culture in Nancy and asked the Mayor a lot of questions, which he answered, much to their delight.
The Mayor also brought letters from the children at Marcel Leroy, St Paul’s partner school in Nancy and delicious biscuits, which are part of a food waste project in Nancy and which they will learn how to make when they visit Nancy in June.
It is wonderful to see the enthusiasm and commitment of the pupils and their teachers for these bonds of friendship with Nancy and I look forward to welcoming them to our city in June.
I hope that this school partnership is an example that many others will follow and encourage Newcastle and Nancy schools to get involved, forge lasting relationships with their fellow students in Nancy and to learn from each other.
Mathieu Klein, Mayor of Nancy
Eric, as well as being the Honorary French Consul for the North, sits on International Newcastle’s Board and is a passionate supporter of Anglo-French links and partnerships. He spent three days with the delegation from Nancy, in discussions around our international partnerships, business relationships and the transformation of the cities of Newcastle and Nancy in relation to sustainable urban infrastructure.
This first visit by the delegation was supported by the British Embassy.
Supporting school partnerships
International Newcastle and Newcastle City Council are supporting schools and colleges in Newcastle to develop partnerships with their counterparts in Nancy, which has been Newcastle’s twin city since 1954.
We have been working with DAREIC, the international relations department for education in the region of Nancy-Metz, to promote new partnerships. There is a simple partnership form that education establishments can complete to identify their interests. This is used as a starting point to find an appropriate education partner in Nancy and we will support the development of the partnership, as well as help with applications to the Turing Scheme (due to open shortly) to fund visits.
This is a great opportunity to develop international links, support language learning, intercultural awareness and relationships, as well as develop joint projects and exchanges and a wide range of curriculum and extra curricula activities.
These experiences can be life-changing for young people, opening new horizons, perspectives and opportunities for their future lives and careers.
Declan Baharini, Director, International Newcastle
There are lots of other ways we can provide additional support and opportunities and these are summarised in this document, along with all contact details.
We are also hosting the Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages and encouraging schools to get involved, including doing activities with their international partners. The Festival is a celebration of languages and cultures and our connections to the world.
There are lots of free activities for schools, some running now and others open for bookings in March. There are many relating to French and France and we have summarised these in a special news post here: Festival fun with French. From puppet shows, to cookery, language tasters to linguistics and fun games and apps – there is something for all ages of children.
We are particularly delighted that Nancy schools will be singing the Festival song – I am a small part of the world – which is a song about connections and togetherness.