Redhills and Offwell develop strong European links with Spain, Italy and Latvia

While everybody in the UK is still wondering what the consequences the country´s path to Brexit will actually bring about, some schools like Offwell Primary from Honiton and Redhills Primary from Exeter as well as the ACE MAT from Devon have been successful in gaining Erasmus+ funding to participate in a pioneering Erasmus+ project with Spain, Italy and Latvia which is led by the English teacher, Enrique Ruiz Cano, from Andrés García Soler Primary in Spain.

This project, therefore, includes these two Primary schools from Devon, the ACE MAT, the Spanish school, Scuola Padre Pio from Altamura, Italy and Rigas Classical Gymnasium from Latvia as well as Antonio de Nebrija University from Madrid. This project will also benefit some other schools in Devon thanks to the ACE MAT which is led by Mr Stuart Busby, head at Redhills Primary and a member of the Ofsted.

It is worth pointing out this will be the second Erasmus+ project for Redhills Primary school in Exeter and 4th Erasmus+ project for the Spanish school as they both successfully carried out another one which came to an end last summer.

This project will bring over £50,000 to Devon from the EU during the schools years 2016/17 and 2017/18 which will be used to fund children and teachers´ exchanges between the countries involved and innovate when it comes to implementing CELT (Content Enhanced Language Teaching) for the English Literacy lessons both as the mother tongue and as a FL “foreign language”.

This project will also aim to enhance pupils´ sociocultural competence, Inclusive Education and Multiple Intelligences as well as develop some research which will be carried out by the ACE MAT in the UK and Nebrija University at the Spanish end.

Mr Ruiz said: “We will lay out the benefits that working in an European schools network can bring about for pupils and teachers.”

After Anne Billington, headmistress at Offwell and Stuart Busby, the ACE MAT leader and head teacher at Redhills, visited Spain in October with a lecturer from the University from Madrid, and Italian and Latvian school staff and Devon children with Italian and Latvian pupils stayed in Spain for a week, it has recently been the UK´s turn to host children coming from Spain, Italy and Latvia.

They have stayed in Exeter for a week, visited Offwell Primary for one day, and been on cultural trips to places such as Bath, Dawlish and Oxford. In total there have been 13 children from Spain - Daniel Pozas, Daniel Cerezo, Alex Oliver, Joaquín Paredes, Juan José García, Diego Reinaldos, Javier Cano, Mario Donaire, Antonio Manzanera, Natalia Sánchez, Raquel Sánchez, Alejandra Romero and Alba Ruiz; five children from Italy - Diego Popolizio, Rossana Giorgio, Silvestro Berloco, Graziano Continisio, and Kristel Hoxha as well as four Latvian children - Matjuško Aleksandrs, Ieva Blaževiča, Vlada Karasjova and Sajafs Alijevs.

For the following school year, English children are meant to visit Latvia together with Italian and Spanish children and Italy together with Spanish and Latvian children.