Southwick Community Primary School in Sunderland is in the first cluster of UK schools to twin with schools in Syria.  Find out how this partnership is getting started.

In October last year, three teachers from Syria visited Sunderland schools including Southwick Community Primary with Dr Mouna Alsayed from the British Council in Damascus (on the left).

Their visit was the first step bringing four British and six Syrian schools together, and is a pioneering British Syrian school partnership.

Since then, pupils and teachers have been preparing work to introduce themselves.

Southwick pupils in Year 2, aged six and seven years old, used their ICT lessons to make a sequence of 'zooming' photos from Google Earth to show their new Syrian partner schools where they are located.

It's among several projects they have put together.

Power-point presentations and MP3 recordings will give Syrian pupils insight into their lives.

Jack, aged 11, shared his passion for the local football club, Sunderland FC and the Stadium of Light.

Megan, aged 10, introduces her pet hamster, Florence, in a presentation about her home.

In MP3 recordings Bradley and Keisha, aged 9, talk about what they do at the weekends. 

Highlights include eating pickled onions with Grandma, and playing on the trampoline.

Southwick teacher, Alan Stoker, wanted to broaden the school's cultural links beyond Europe.   

He intended to look for a partner school in Egypt but when Dr Stoker attended a British Council Connecting Classrooms seminar, Syrian links appealed and the delegation of Syrian teachers visited the Sunderland schools. 

Four teachers from Sunderland are preparing to visit their Syrian twins in April this year.

“We are learning," Dr Stoker says. "We want to learn more."

How did they do that?

Southwick Community Primary School and Grange Park Primary School, Red House Academy and Willow Fields Community Primary are twinned with a cluster of six Syrian schools in Damascus and Homs.  They are the Al-Montafawiken School in Damascus, the Al-Montafawiken School in Homs, Abdel Raouf Saeed School, Samir Salloum School, Al-Kifah School and the National Centre of Distinguished in Homs.

The partnership is facilitated by the British Council's Connecting Classrooms programme.

Prior to this the school has also taken part in three Comenius funded partnerships with schools across Europe.

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