A team of colleagues from Batley Girls' High School visited Greece last week, as part of our work with the Erasmus project, for the British Council. Emma Rodrigues has been working with a team of teachers from Greece, Norway, Portugal and Spain since 2019 and the project has seen a series of visits to other partner countries with a number of face-to-face meetings providing a forum for discussion over the course of the past four years; including a four-day visit to Batley, last March.

 

The focus of this Erasmus initiative is student and staff wellbeing from both a strategic and a practical level. The work involves the sharing of best practice across all of the European partners at both a broader educational level as well as linking together subject teachers to provide additional opportunities for support and the sharing of knowledge. 

 

The connections and discussion that have taken place since 2019 have informed improved ways-of-working. This is a trailblazing project and will result in each country producing a suite of materials, which will be trialled and eventually shared across Europe; and we're extremely proud to have been a part of this invaluable experience.

 

Emma was joined by Suzi Spencer and Sameeya Patel from Batley Girls' High School, who are both lead teachers for PSHCE, and have developed resources on character education, resilience, mindfulness and managing mood for use in lessons. These resources have also been shared with our Erasmus partners and will be evaluated so we can take learnings, for next steps, which is invaluable as part of our plan, do, review approach.

 

Our objective across our Trust family of schools is to provide a great education and we know this doesn't just happen in the classroom environment. We aim to develop well-rounded individuals who can contribute to society, and projects such as this help our young people to see a world where difference is valued and celebrated.