We are delighted to share the news that Sarah Edgar of Newcastle City Council School Effectiveness Team has won the annual We Are Newcastle People’s Award. Sarah won the award run annually by the City Council and YHN, which for this category had over 300 nominations, 10 finalists and was voted for by the public. The awards celebrate the achievements of City Council and YHN teams and staff and the Public Award is given in recognition of consistently excellent service to the City of Newcastle and its residents.
International Newcastle nominated Sarah for her outstanding work with us on supporting language learning and teaching in the city, international links for schools and intercultural awareness raising activities, as well as her work on Newcastle Schools of Sanctuary, as well as the English as an Additional Language network for the city’s schools.
Together with International Newcastle, there are now over 50 international links established for our schools, teachers have been participating in professional development for language teaching, children and young people have had more access to activities celebrating and exploring languages and other cultures and she has also been part of our steering group for the successful, annual Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages. She has been instrumental in supporting Schools of Sanctuary in the city and helping children who are Refugees and Asylum Seekers, as well as innovating in introducing support for multilingualism in our diverse school community.
We are working with Sarah to develop a series of case studies and films which will profile the achievements of schools and pupils around languages, international links and intercultural awareness. These should be available in the autumn.
You can find out more about our work on this website: Connecting Internationally, Newcastle City of Languages and Internationalism in the City and also view an overview of all of these activities in our guide on how we work together to support schools.