The eTwinning National Award ceremony took place at a Gala dinner on Saturday, recognising outstanding international projects led by UK schools. There were 12 awards presented across various categories and one award for the overall winning project.
Northampton High was awarded the prize for outstanding contribution to international school collaboration. To secure the award, the local school worked in partnership with pupils in five other countries – Spain, France, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia – to create an outstanding project using digital collaborative tools. The project entailed ‘Don’t judge a person by a face#eTwinclusion!’ and judging panels commented about the school’s award-winning project, “This eTwinning project emanates commitment, collaboration and community engagement. The students engaged enthusiastically in the universal theme of inclusion as it impacts at all ages. Through the diverse and extensive use of technology, face to face encounters with their communities, artists and parents they have related high impact outcomes and legacy. Well-presented evaluations, dissemination and a well-structured TwinSpace have added to this excellent project.”
The project scored highly against each criteria of the below pedagogical framework.
- Pedagogical innovation
- Curricular integration
- Communication and exchange between partner schools
- Collaboration between partner schools
- Use of technology
- Results, impact and documentation
eTwinning, the digital community for schools has seen over 700,000 teachers from 44 countries across Europe and beyond register since 2005. The programme is funded by the European Commission as part of the Erasmus+ programme and managed in the UK by the British Council. The eTwinning National Award is issued to schools that produce outstanding work as part of their eTwinning partnership.
Alicia Diez, Teacher of Spanish and French said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the eTwinning National Award. Everyone at Northampton High School has enjoyed working with the five partner schools on ‘Don’t judge a person by a face#eTwinclusion!’ and a number of other projects. To secure the eTwinning National Award is a real honour for the students and teachers who participated in the project. The eTwinning project has brought a broad range of benefits to our pupils, and is yet another example of the international flavour we enjoy at our school, as a commitment to developing our pupils’ global outlook in these times of change.”
