Above: Schools Linking Network logo

School linking can conjure up many images, the most common and positive one being of children meeting other children, from different backgrounds and discovering with a mixture of surprise, relief and delight, that they have more in common than they would have expected; that they are after all, children just like them; who go to school, who love ice-cream and pizza, support football teams or watch soaps on TV.

Maybe that in itself is an important step on the way to understanding what it is to be human and living in the 21^st century, but good school links must achieve so much more if they are to warrant the time and effort that schools put into them.

Effective school linking works with the themes of WDWTWA in a wide range of ways and ensures that powerful and memorable experiences of meeting others are set in a context of developing understanding of who we are , where we live and how we relate to each other.

Teachers therefore attend CPD which addresses the concepts of identity, diversity, equality and community and then plan work which they carry out in the classroom, before the children ever meet. Once the meetings do occur, they also crucially build in times for reflection and evaluation of the experience and allow children to express their aspirations, expectations, surprises and then support them to work towards what they would like to happen next.

If school linking is to have a lasting impact, the children and young people involved must feel that they have a role to play in the way it works and must feel safe to express how they feel about moving into unfamiliar territory. Children and teachers alike embark upon a learning journey that they willingly embrace in search of a sense of belonging in a rapidly changing world.

Written by:
Angie Kotler
Strategic Manager
Schools Linking Network

Further advice and guidance on School-to-School Linking is available from the following link:
http://www.wdwtwa.org.uk/schoolslinkingnetwork.

DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in the article featured above are the writer's own and do not represent the views of either the Who Do We Think We Are (WDWTWA) consortium of partners (Royal Geographical Society with IBG, the Historical Association and Citizenship Consultant Paula Kitching) or the project's funding body, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

If you would like to comment on the content of this article, please send a response via the WDWTWA Blog (Have your say), or email wdwtwa@rgs.org.