Two UK schools are taking their global partnership with Albania to a new level next month.

In May, a team of teachers from the UK will visit Hasan Tahsini Gjimnazi School in Sarande, Albania.

Chance meeting

The teachers are from Thomas Deacon Academy in Peterborough and Gleed Boys' School in Spalding.  Both schools aim to be outward looking and embrace international links.

The partnership with Tahsini Gjimnazi School was set up by British and Albanian teachers. Hilary Faulkner fromThomas Deacon Academy and Mandy North from Gleed Boys' visited Albania on holiday in 2000.

By chance, their tour guide, Aferdita Premti, was a teacher at a local school. They stayed in touch and set up a partnership between the three schools.

Exchanging e-mails

The school is based in Sarande which is and eight hour bus drive from the capital.

One of the purposes of the visit is to set up a reliable internet link in Albania so that the students can e-mail and chat to each other via webcam. 

Thomas Deacon has a school intranet so Tahsini Gjimnazi School will be able to access and contribute to their international pages.

Curriculum colaborations

The schools plan to start running joint curriculum projects together and have been working on art projects that reflect their communities.

The teachers will use the visit to exchange art work, which will be displayed in all three schools.

The visiting teachers also plan to make a film of Hasan Tahsini Gjimnazi School and its local area. A travel and tourism class are going to use the film to learn how tourism in developing in Albania.

How did they do that?

Staff and students from Thomas Deacon Academy, Peterborough and Gleed Boys’ School, Spalding are working with staff and students from Hasan Tahsini Gjimnazi and Adem Sheme (elementary and secondary) Shkolla.

Their visit is funded by The British Council's  Global Schools Partnership grant.

Join BBC World Class and our partners will help you twin.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.