¡Comenzamos!

 

 

 

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

between

SUNSHINE HEIGHTS PS.   &   CEIP. MENÉNDEZ Y PELAYO

Sunshine Heights Primary School in Melbourne, Australia (1-19 Mailey Street, West Sunshine,3020,Victoria) and CEIP. Menéndez y Pelayo inValverde del Camino, Spain (Carretera de Calañas, Valverde del Camino, 21600, Huelva), hereby agree to become sister schools in order to develop friendship and cooperation between our two schools and promote mutual understanding and cultural awareness between Australia and Spain.

It is recommended to keep this agreement to 3 years life, to allow revision to accommodate changed needs and expectations.

SISTER SCHOOL PROGRAM GOALS

·      To develop cultural knowledge and intercultural understanding.

·      To support the teaching of Spanish language in Sunshine Heights PS. and English language in CEIP. Menéndez y Pelayo and to continue to teach the languages in their respective schools.

·      To develop ties of friendship through regular communication. Provide students and staff with opportunities to interact with people from other cultures.

·      To develop students into citizens who are globally engaged, comfortable with diversity and with the skills to operate effectively across cultures with different world views and belief systems.

SISTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

Potential future activities:

·      Organize a Sister School ceremony in both schools to celebrate the partnership, such as planting a tree and presenting the Sister School at the school assembly.

·      Design a common blog in which both language teachers are participants, exchanginginformation about language curriculum and school events. Students could also design the logo for the blog and be participants.

·      Exchange of student work, email, letters, parcels, photos, student newspapers, etc to promote mutual understanding.

·      Regular communication between Sister School administrators, using online networks like Skype or Whatsapp.

·      Both schools will endeavour to maintain students, teachers and administrators exchange programs to provide the opportunity to all enjoy and live in the sister school community, ensuring the success of the program.

·      Exchange of teaching resources, course materials and teaching strategies between schools.

·      Consider future visits overseas for teachersinvolved in the Sister School project to better understanding of the language, culture and education system in both countries.

·      Provide video conferencing facilities which should be used for the development of electronically supported relationships between both schools.  This can include class interaction between students, teachers and PD sessions. 

·      Choose a song for both schools, “We can be friend”, which will be sung and recorded by both schools.

·      Exchange folklore between both countries, such as typical dances.

·      Create annual projects about acommon topic. For example, “We travel around the world”.

·      Study and compare information between both countries: gastronomy, meteorology, environment, etc.

In 2017, Sunshine Heights PS. and CEIP. Menéndez y Pelayo will review this agreement to determine future directions of this agreement.