Exciting new Erasmus+ project for King’s Ely and two European partner schools

November 30, 2020

King’s Ely students with a love for learning languages and experiencing different cultures are to reap the benefits of a new Erasmus+ project.

King’s Ely has secured funding from the European Commission and British Council to deliver ‘The Village’ – a collaborative project involving King’s Ely and two of its partner schools, IES Andrés Vandelvira in Albacete, Spain and College Chaloupe Saint-Leu in La Reunion, France.

The two-year project will involve dozens of students from each school and the aim is for participants to explore the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations through the creation of a unique virtual city, The Village, while developing cultural awareness and social interaction in order to create a real context to enhance their language skills.

A series of physical and online activities will be carried out in each school, where pupils will work collaboratively with their partners on the production of ‘The Village’, with its own citizens, education and political systems, taking into consideration the SDGs that will make their city environmentally friendly, poverty free and granting education for all.

Once travel restrictions have been lifted, there will also be exchange trips, enabling participants to meet each other, work together and learn more about each other’s languages and cultures.

Esmeralda Salgado, Head of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) at King’s Ely, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be able to deliver this Erasmus+ project. It is a wonderful and unique opportunity for students from all three schools to work collaboratively, to improve their linguistic skills, to develop their IT skills and to foster a love for cultural differences and tolerance.

“During their visits to La Reunion and Albacete, once travel is permitted in schools, students will spend most of the time at the French and Spanish schools carrying out different workshops and activities for the creation of our virtual city. They will also undertake several day trips to emblematic historical or geographical places in the country of origin, in relation to the project. This is a project which echoes the King’s Ely MFL Department’s mission to instil a love of language learning and to take languages outside the classroom.”

In 2019, King’s Ely won a British Council eTwinning National Award in recognition of its “outstanding contribution to international school collaboration”. The award was for ‘United in Diversity’- another Erasmus+ funded project involving King’s Ely and the schools in Albacete and La Reunion.

The MFL Department at King’s Ely is a hive of activity and the school thrives on developing linguistic competence in all pupils while offering a wide range of enrichment opportunities. Strong links with our partner schools, including in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, allows us to make learning a language a rich and real experience. To discover more about opportunities at King’s Ely, please visit: www.kingsely.org