International connections

Balodaya English Boarding School, Pokhara, Nepal

Sir Christopher Hatton School is linked with Balodaya English Boarding School in Nepal.

The school was set up over 20 years ago by its principal and founder Mr Durga Datta Pageni and his wife Mrs Kamala Pageni.

 

 

 

How the link was created

 

We forged the link back in 2006 by looking on the British Council’s website to find a school to link with. Mrs Ruth Batchelor and Mrs Janice Ferraz made the initial contact with the school and invited Mr and Mrs Pageni over to visit Hatton.

 

BalodayaEnglishBoarding School (B.E.Bs)

 

The school has a mixture of boys and girls between the ages of 4 – 16. Most of the student’s lessons are taught in English to help them improve their speaking and writing in English. This is a fee paying school, in Nepal after the first 5 years of education all students have to pay for their continuing education.

The school is situated in Pokhara which is a beautiful area of Nepal and enjoys a large lakeside tourist attraction; it is also a stop over for trekkers who are going along the Annapurna trail.

The school itself takes part in all kinds of competitions including first aid, run by the Red Cross; many different sports as well as academic competitions, including public speaking and they also enjoy having a strong dance element within the school.

 

 

                            First Aid competition                                 

 

Teacher Exchange visits

 

In October 2006 Mr and Mrs Pageni arrived in London and had a whistle stop tour of the capital, including a trip on the London Eye. This was all quite an eye opener as neither of them had travelled to Europe before. They enjoyed watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace despite having been travelling for 2 very long days to get to England.

 

                           Mr and Mrs Pageni enjoying the sights of London with Mrs Ferraz and Mrs Batchelor

 

Once in Northamptonshire the couple stayed with Mrs Batchelor and Mrs Ferraz and enjoyed a full week of being in school, talking with students, attending a variety of lessons and also taking some lessons to introduce themselves, their school and their country to students at Hatton.

                                      Mr and Mrs Pageni in various classes at Sir Christopher Hatton

 

By applying for a reciprocal grant from the British Council Mrs Batchelor and Mrs Ferraz were able to visit Nepal. They had an amazing journey out and thoroughly enjoyed their time at Balodaya School where they were treated as important visitors by all the staff and students alike. They were able to take lessons and also have sessions with the teachers from the school where they were able to discuss the different classroom behaviour and teaching methodologies within both schools. Mr and Mrs Pageni were very generous hosts and they enabled the teachers from Hatton to be able to visit a national park where they embarked upon a jungle walk on an elephant. Although this was a high point of the trip just being able to spend time with the staff and students from the school and talk was a very memorable and invaluable experience. There is a ppt that shows highlights from this visit , click on the link below.

 

                     Mrs Batchelor and Mrs Ferraz with some of the staff at Balodaya School, Nepal

 

Since these initial visits Mr and Mrs Pageni have again visited the school and spent time with students and staff. They were also able to visit one of our feeder schools, Oakway Junior, where they spent the day talking with students about Nepal and this was useful as the school were studying India and different cultures. Both the staff and students enjoyed Mr and Mrs Pageni’s visit and it was very interesting for the couple as at their school students start at the age of 4, going through to 16.

                                  

Rotarians

 

Mr and Mrs Pageni are hardworking Rotarians who have done a lot of charitable work in Nepal. During their visit to Wellingborough one of the school governors was kind enough to invite them to a Rotary lunch. Hatton’s teachers also visited two rotary luncheons when they went to Nepal and they were guest speakers on the subject of Global education and its importance to the local community and the global community.

                                          

                                                            Mr and Mrs Pageni at the Wellingborough Rotary Lunch

 Work exchange                                                                            

 

Students at Hatton and Balodaya have exchanged weather diaries and these have been used in displays and discussions, looking at the similarities and differences of the weather in these countries.

 

Some students have also exchanged letters, although this was harder to maintain for a variety of reasons.

We have had lots of work from the students in Nepal which shows the attitude towards their studies and how much young people in Nepal value their friendships and their families. Most of the students in Nepal state that their main influence and the person who has mostly inspired  them is a member of their family, usually a parent or grandparent.

The students from Nepal also sent some lovely examples of artwork , images of the landscape painted on to leaves.

 

Send my friend to school

 

Both Hatton and Balodaya have taken part in this world wide campaign, showing their interest in reminding the world leaders of their promise to ensure that all children should be receiving a primary education. The work produced by students has been sent to Downing street, making students aware of their part in keeping this important campaign in the forefront of our politicians agendas.

 

Environment

 

At Hatton School Mrs Simmonds, who is the teacher responsible for the Eco group and our International Schools status, organised trees to be delivered from the Woodland Trust so that we can plant them as a sign of our commitment to the environment and also in honour of our link with Balodaya School.

   

 

In Nepal the students took part in a “clean up” of their local environment as well as a planting session that was undertaken in their school environment

 

                              

                  Students at Balodaya taking part in planting and cleaning up the local environment

 

Scholarships

 

During the 2008-9 Academic year students from Hatton School have purchased friendship bangles in order to be able to provide 2 scholarships for Balodaya School. The friendship bangles were produced in Nepal and they are a reminder to the students at Hatton of many things: the fact that they are fortunate to live in a country that values education and is able to ensure that all young people can attend school, it reminds them of the link we have with the school in Nepal and it also reminds them that no matter how small we can all do something that can impact on another person’s life but that acting together as a team the impact that we can have is greater.

Some of our year 11 and year 10 students produced ppts as part of their GCSE English speaking and Listening work. They had to create a speech to present to their peers persuading them to donate money in exchange for a friendship bracelet, to change a young person’s life. Examples of these ppt can be seen if you click on the link below.

                                                                       

                

  Future plans

 

At the end of 2007-8 academic year we looked into the possibility of inviting 2 students over from Nepal to take part in AS studies, this was greatly appreciated by all of the students at Balodaya School who were keen to take part. To enable us to be able to do this we needed host families who were willing to have the students stay with them and some families did come forward and show an interest in taking part in this process, however by the time all of the details had been sorted out it was too late for the students in Nepal to be able to apply and come over. We would like to say a huge thank you to the families who showed an interest and hope that they will consider taking part in such an exchange in the future.

 

Meanwhile Mrs Simmonds and Mrs Ferraz are applying to gain a grant from the British Council that may enable more staff and possibly students to do an exchange trip to the school in Nepal.

 

Nepal has just celebrated its first anniversary as a republic so for all of the people of Nepal these are changing and very interesting times. We are glad to have this link with such a hard working school in Nepal. If you would like to have a look at the website of the link school and see their photo album, which includes images from their visit to Sir Christopher Hatton School and our staff’s visit to their school, go to www.bebs.edu.np                       

 

We wish our colleagues and all the students in Nepal Good Luck with all their studies and hard work and we look forward to more work being exchanged that will help all of our students become more aware of the wider world around them.

 

Asian Dialogues

 

We are now proud to be part of an exciting project organised through the British Council, which links classrooms and learners’ experiences across Northamptonshire with students and teachers in South Asia.

 

Our group of schools is developing links with schools in Vietnam and, as part of this, 2 teachers from Hatton will be going on a fact finding mission with other teachers from the consortium in Northampton to help forge work links between students in all of the schools.

 

There will be more information on the school site after the visit, which takes place during half term. Before the visit many students will take part in organising information and images to be exchanged with the schools in Vietnam.