School Partnerships
The School Partnerships Initiative is a critically important element within BEFSA’s framework to support schools in Southern Africa.
By linking schools in the UK with a partner school in South Africa we provide both UK and SA pupils and teachers with the opportunity to work together and to share and to celebrate their own cultures.
Within this broad framework of partnership working, BEFSA’s expectation is always for mutual support and common benefits. This is achieved through the Global Citizenship curriculum and through the promotion of learning experiences with a global dimension. Our learning modules include:
- values and perceptions
- human rights
- conflict resolution
- diversity
- sustainability
- globalisation
Both UK and SA schools are strongly encouraged to participate in the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms Programme which, amongst other things, provides funding for teacher exchange visits.
Whilst BEFSA’s school partnership initiative is fundamentally about taking steps to bridge and reduce the gap between schools in the developed and developing world, the partnership initiative is also about:
- collaboration on a wide range of curriculum topics, on policy and curriculum development and on providing guidance on school improvement
- the facilitation of positive interventions to enable the former historically deprived schools in South Africa to move forward.
Join the School Partnership Initiative
There are currently 21 school partnerships in place between schools in the UK and South Africa. Although the majority of the UK schools are drawn from Oxfordshire there are schools joining the partnership from all over the UK. As the focus of BEFSA’s work in South Africa is in the province of the Eastern Cape, all the South African schools are located in this province.
If you would like your school to participate in the initiative please complete this application form. We look forward to working with you soon.