Around the world in 80 schools
From WikiREADia
'Autumn Challenge' 
The Westgate School 'Around the World in 80 Schools' 
Contents |
Intro
www.aroundtheworldin80schools.com/schools/school5
Purpose
To Share the 2008 National Year of Reading with schools in Uganda and Sri Lanka and provide a range of reading resources donated and chosen by individual students from our school. We invited students to donate a book/magazine that they have chosen personally. Along with this they wrote a letter introducing themselves and explaining why they chose the book/magazine and why they think another child would enjoy it.
About the project
The Westgate Media Crew were introduced to Charline Evans, a teacher from Wales through Media4schools an initiative which involves training students on how to use video equipment to make films and edit them. Media4schools provided Charline with all her recording equipment. Her quest is to visit 80 schools around the world. Her route takes her across the seven continents and through over 30 countries to visit a further 78 schools before returning to Wales for the 80th school. Each school visited will be producing a film representing their country and culture. [1] All participating schools will be involved in the tracking and submission of environmental data to help create a worldwide picture of sustainable development and global citizenship through schools and education. [2] We have been monitoring Charlene’s progress and came up with the idea of using The 2008 National Year of Reading as the year we help promote reading in other schools around the world.
With sponsorship from The Royal Mail, who work very closely with our school. These resources will then be distributed to the schools to encourage reading and share the resources we take for granted, courtesy of The Royal Mail.
Outcome
'What an amazing outcome! Through Charlene I made a contact with Premila Gamage a Librarian and member of International Federation of Library Associations for Asia and Oceania. We were very fortunate that Premila was visitng England from Sri Lanka and she came into our school to meet me. She gave us all sorts of advice, what sort of books the schools in Sri Lanka needed, the difficulties in getting the books to their final destinations. And all the contact addresses of where to send the books.
We have now started to deliver lessons in our Business and Enterprise subjects in order to start collecting the books, and with the help of The Royal Mail we should be ready to send the books next January 2009! 
Mr Thomas Headmaster
