Head Teacher, Mr Lassetter and Extended Hours Co-ordinator, Mr Bywater, from St Thomas C of E Primary School in Birmingham, UK, were able to visit McIntosh Primary School to establish a partnership in September 2011 as part of a project funded by the British Council and "Widening Horizons" UK.

The main aim of the visit was to look into the feasibility of linking Jamaican schools with schools in Birmingham. The project was being piloted by the Region 5 Ministry of Education Team and had the full backing of the Government Minister for Education in Jamaica; they both learnt many things about school life in Jamaica and took back books, letters, music, art work and lots more for children and teachers to look at.

The visit was a huge success and after months of planning and discussions back and forth via email about how best to integrate the global school link partnership into our curriculum, the time had came for the next visit to take place. On the 17th October 2012 Mr Lassetter, Mr Bywater, Mr O’Neil, Miss Greenwood and Miss Sutton flew out from Gatwick airport bound for Montego Bay.

The visit was the next stage in solidifying the partnership that had first been made by Mr Lassetter and Mr Bywater the previous year. This years plan focussed predominately on spending as much time as possible in our link school McIntosh Memorial Primary. Whereas the previous years visit had been more about “fact finding” ,“feasibility” and setting the foundations for the future of all Birmingham – Jamaica School links. This visit was all about taking the
partnership to the next level.

The St Thomas team spent 4 days in McIntosh Memorial and were able to get a real feel for how the school was run and the standards of education it is providing to its children despite some challenging barriers. They were able to observe lessons and participate actively in them. The team felt it was refreshing to see that despite what they would consider a lack of resources in which to enrich lessons, the children were engaged and excited by the lessons that were being taught, they agreed that was down to good teaching and also down the value that is placed on education in Jamaica as a whole. The children at McIntosh Memorial Schools showed themselves to be confident, self assured and aware of there heritage and history, with a real sense of national pride and belief.

The children showed that they knew where they wanted to be in life and embraced learning as the vehicle in which to get them there. The team felt there are as many similarities as there are differences between the two schools, and from this visit it was quite apparent that there is much to learn from each other in order to enrich our children’s learning.

There were also opportunities to work with groups of children; this was used this as a way of launching a penpal project and recorded video messages to bring back home to show our children. There was also  the opportunity to meet and talk with professional counterparts and share experiences and best practice. The team were treated to many performances by the children that they had had perfected for the visit including the British National Anthem.

The team also had the pleasure of taking part in the annual Jamaica day celebrations. The team thanks everyone for treating them extremely well as just as last year, every effort was made to make them feel welcome and cared for with food and refreshments provided regularly every day.

On the final day there was a meeting with the senior leadership team from the school, members of the governing body and PTA aswell as Mark Smith, the Region 5 Community Relations Officer from the Ministry of Education.

During this meeting we discussed what each school wanted to achieve from our Global School Partnership and how we could achieve this. We also set out plans to involve the children in a more direct and active way. The main outcome of this meeting was the agreement to integrate the partnership into the curriculum. We have set the first shared project around "Identity" this will start in the Summer Term 2013. This is a big step and if successful will secure the longevity of this partnership.

Whilst there the team also had the time to meet with Ministry of Education, they are very pleased with the progress of the partnership and the early successes it
has made, they plan to use our model as the lead for all of their Jamaica school link partnerships and are keen to work closely to develop and nurture the growth of this link. Their approval and the fact that it has the backing of the Minister of Education who wrote a letter to Mr Lassetter reiterating his support for this partnership,really shows that there is a clear future for this link.

The Ministry arranged at our request to take the team to 3 schools that Mr Lassetter and Mr Bywater had visited and had good experiences in the previous year. This worked well as it allowed the other members of staff to see how different all the schools in the region are. We were once again treated to a warm welcome from the each school and performances that had been put on especially for our visit.

The whole visit was a huge success and met the outcomes that hoped for.

The team were unfortunate to be caught up in C during this trip. They reported:

"We were blissfullyunaware of Hurricane Sandy's impending visit to the island until the actual morning before it hit. The Ministry of Education and staff at McIntosh Memorial were very efficient in offering support and guidance and insisted we make are way back to the coast to a safer area. The wind from the storm was incredible strong with speeds in excess of 70mph, the hotel we were staying in suffered damage and certain areas had to be closed down for the safety of the guests.

The airports were all closed and there was a 48 hour curfew placed on people
leaving there homes/hotels. We were fortunate that the hotel we were staying in
was well prepared and the staff and management did there best to keep everybody safe. Mr Bywater and Miss Greenwood did several interviews for the BBC on a selection of there programs. The hurricane passed without any fatalities and although we had to stay an extra 36 hours we were able to fly home without any problems. Thanks to everyone for their support."

Mrs Anderson, Principal of St Thomas Primary School and Ms Shamara Stubbs were able to visit St Thomas C of E School in Birmingham in November 2012.