Whitehouse Common Primary School in the UK partnered with Colegio Público César Hurtado Delicado in Spain on an eTwinning project called "We are what we celebrate" to compare celebrations and festivals between the two countries. Students exchanged information about Christmas, Shrove Tuesday, Easter and May Day through Twinspace, emails, school websites and letters. The project helped students learn about other cultures and enhanced their skills in various subjects. It received positive feedback from teachers, administrators and students in both schools.

1. Whitehouse Common Primary School CP César Hurtado Delicado Somos lo que celebramos.

2. Overview - Introductions Case study – WCPS and CPCHD Lessons learned Plans for the future at WCPS

3. Whitehouse Common Primary School

5. Why eTwinning? ‘ WCPS prides itself on being an innovative, outward looking school that is interested in and involved with the world outside its doors. By eTwinning with a school abroad, we continue with this outlook by entering into the world of another school and viceversa. Together, we are discovering our similarities and differences, and celebrating the diversity if our lives. Pupils are using ICT (and paper and pen) to communicate in their own language as well as in the language of the partner school and ths their skills in many areas of the curriculum are being enhanced – geography, history, literacy, citizenship, art, music, technology and, of course, ICT and Language.’ Lisa Stevens 2007

7. Why etwinning? 3 KS2 Framework for Languages

9. Colegio Público César Hurtado Delicado

10. The project - Somos lo que celebramos Or, in English, We are what we celebrate

11. 1. Elaboration of a calendar of most representative celebrations of each country. Both schools made a calendar of festivals and special days in their country. CPCHD went for a colourful approach WCPS went for a more informative slant! (see our Twinspace)

12. 2. Analysis of partner country’s calendar and contrasting celebrations. Pupils found it interesting to look at their own calendar. We speculated on what each entry on the CPCHD calendar might be – based on months of year etc. This led to discussion of how Spain differs to England in terms of local ‘fiestas’ etc.

13. Whitehouse Common website www. whitehousecommon .org. uk Welcome / Bienvenido This was the Chair of Governor’s idea to make our new friends feel welcome. And this was my introduction to the school website! Then did some introductory things – map of area, where CPCHD is, links to their site etc.

14. Content page on our website

17. What we did – CPCHD sent their pictures of Carnaval

18. Our pupils looked at the photos and wrote some simple questions to be answered by CPCHD. They prepared presentations using Word about Pancake Day - http:// ficus . pntic . mec . es /mmop0058/Pancake%20Day/Pancake.html Again, a valuable exercise from a number of perspectives.

19. Snow!

26. Then project is entered into National eTwinning awards…

28. What did people say about the project? ‘ I have been taken aback by enthusiasm and commitment shown to this project, the benefits which our children will receive from it will go to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the wider world. It also adds a new dimension to support the work they are doing in learning a second modern language.’ Simon Rowney . Chair of Governors, Whitehouse Common Primary School ‘ It has given the children more interest in Spain and what life is like there. As for staff, I feel that we are committed to our MFL scheme as we are involving e-twin with it and the project has also linked really well with our PSHE / citizenship activities.’ Jamie Barry , KS1 Team leader and Literacy coordinator, Whitehouse Common Primary School

29. What did people say about the project? ‘ Señora Stevens’ efforts and hard work are to be highly commended in setting up and keeping the project moving along. I thought it would be interesting to contact my counterpart in sunny España so I sent a quick email explaining who I was and what I did. ‘ John Horne , caretaker, Whitehouse Common Primary School ‘ The energy of Mrs Stevens is contagious. She has inspired a team of ‘champions’ who are now working to develop their own Spanish so that our e-twinning project becomes an embedded, sustainable and innovative part of our curriculum.’ Dale Hill , Headteacher, Whitehouse Common Primary School

30. What did people say about the project? ‘ e-Twinning has been great fun because we have communicated with the children in Spain. I have enjoyed it very much looking at all the websites and looking to see what is different there and here.’ Nicola Year 5 ‘ I lived about learning about Spain because we got to learn about what they do in Easter, then I went and saw the band in Spain.’ Amy Year 2

32. If you have questions or want more information or advice, feel free to contact me. Lisa xx http://lisibo.blogspot.com [email_address]