ULT International Conference

'Building the Internationalist School'

Very early on Thursday morning 3rd July,4 very bleary eyed pupils, but nonetheless with cheery smiles on their faces, met myself and Miss Rachel Pegum at Piccadilly Station where we boarded the 6:45 train to London. The pupils from WHGS who attended the Student Voice conference for UCST/ULT schools and academies were:
Stephen Schilizzi, our Head Boy, who has been very active in many of our international projects, including attending one of the Strasbourg trips to the European Parliament. He has also been responsible for inviting the Venerable Tan Sudirho - a Buddhist monk from Thailand - to our school on various occasions.
Muneeb Lokasher and Ayman Hussain (Year 9) were chosen because of their involvement in the Science project with the British School,  El Salvador and also their very active participation in the School trip to Le Touquet, France. They have also been doing research into the history of our link school in India: TocH, Cochin, Kerala.
Sukvheer Singh (Year 8) was chosen because of her very valuable involvement in our Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist assemblies throughout the year and also because she features prominantly in the DVD recently made of our school by Miss Rachel Pegum and her team.
Having arrived on time at Euston station, London, we were expertly led to the correct tube line by Miss Pegum so that we could catch the nearest tube to Lambeth academy. By coincidence, Sir Ewan Harper and his wife were sitting opposite us on the tube and as we got off they offered to lead us to the school.
There, we were given a very warm welcome by Stephen Potter, the Headmaster of the school and Ennelyn Schmidt, Director of MFL specialism.

In the morning we listened to a series of speakers who addressed the theme of the conference: 'Building the Internationalist School'.
Sir Ewan Harper, Chief Executive UCST/ ULT opened the conference first by concisely and eruditely giving us his interpretation of the words: 'international' and 'global' before inspiring us all by talking about his own experiences with the various connections he has  had through the world of international business. He then introduced the Rt Hon Keith Hill, MP, who has very close connections with Lambeth Academy.
John Rolfe, from the British Council, gave a presentation on the International School Award and more than once referred to 'the outstanding portfolio' which our school had produced in July, 2006.
Robert Ford from the Ridings High School, Bristol then dazzled us with the multifarious projects his school has recently embarked upon as an Internationalist School. Before lunch Steve Beswick, Education Director for Microsoft, UK spoke about the various schemes that his company is involved with throughout the world to bring useful technology to young people who would not normally have access to it.
After lunch Miss Rachel Pegum showed the DVD she has recently produced to introduce our school to the pupils in our link school in Kerala, India. After, she talked about her future plans for this particular project.  I then explained the practical steps needed for any school wishing to apply for the International Schools Award before giving a presentation on the contents of our school's award-winning portfolio. (Please see accompanying PDF.)
The rest of the afternoon was then given over to the pupils: first there was a round table session where we could circulate around the various tables to visit various presentations given by each participating school: Ashford School, Lambeth Academy, Lincoln Minster School, Salford City Academy, Surbiton High School and of course, our own.
Then the pupils were divided up into mixed groups so that they could debate the main theme of the conference- namely, to discuss what ideally they would like to be involved in either in their own schools or jointly between the participating UCST/ULT schools and academies. Two of our pupils were selected to chair their respective groups: -Stephen Schilizzi and Muneeb Lokasher - and they were both eloquent and convincing speakers! Stephen's group  discussed ways pupils could discover other cultures whilst at the same time maintaining their own cultural identity; Muneeb's working-party discussed the need for more links between the various UCST/ULT schools and academies, especially with regards to video-conferencing abroad. They also looked at various multicultural events with a view to raising money for different charities. (see accompanying notes from the student voice feedback and proposals.*)
As we set off to catch our train back to Manchester we all agreed that this had been a very productive day and we were looking forward to future developments both at our own school and also amongst the UCST/ULT schools and academies.