International Links
Meadowhead proved its truly global ethos as a well established Language College and a centre of excellence when it was awarded the International School award from the British Council in 2004, then again in 2007, 2010 and 2013! We were the first school in Sheffield to achieve this award 4 times and are very proud of this achievement.
“Meadowhead has always been an outstanding example of what can be achieved through a rich, accessible and relevant range of international work which supports globally aware young people and it has always been a personal and professional privilege to work with you and of course many congratulation on your very well-deserved four time success in the British Council International School Award! “ John Rolfe, International school award team, British council.
We were delighted to be awarded this status again for the 2016 - 2019 period. We are dedicated to enriching our students’ educational experiences to broaden their horizons by offering a wide variety of International links both as part of their various curriculum subjects, and through after school clubs, international projects, trips and exchange programmes. Many of which are possible thanks to the valuable links we have developed with our International partner schools and programmes led by the British Council and the European Commission on a regular basis, including our partner schools in China, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Spain & Sri Lanka.
We run many joint curriculum project activities, trips, study visits and exchange programmes with many of our school partners on a regular basis in a variety of subject areas:
Exchange trip to China Zaragoza Exchange Visit
French Exchange Visit German Exchange Visit
Rugby Tour to Italy
- We are members of various language focus groups in the community such as SHELL (Sheffield schools and Higher Education Languages Liaison Group) and ALL (Association for Language Learning).
- Through the British council we employ Foreign Language Assistants from Germany, Spain, France and sometimes China on an annual basis to support language learning and enrichment activities.
- Supporting other language teachers in the city – For several years, experienced members of Meadowhead languages faculty have supported other colleagues across the city with both individual teaching needs and new curriculum initiatives. Our talented language teachers have provided workshops at various Language conferences across the city and beyond to share good practice in language teaching and learning.
- We organise an annual INTERNATIONAL DAY where various visiting artists have come into school both from our local community and from as far as Zimbabwe to provide workshops on an International theme. We have in the past offered everything from French boules, German cafés, Bollywood/Zumba dancing, African Drumming, Brazilian Samba, New Zealand Tig, German Handball, Spanish tapas tasting, Indian Yoga, Chinese calligraphy and language tasters in Italian, Chinese, Greek, Russian and Japanese.
- We invite Onatti Theatre Company to provide annual French plays for KS2/3 students and invite our feeder schools and some other Special needs and Secondary schools in our community to attend and share in these fun language learning opportunities wherever possible.
Global Conference - Sri Lanka Onatti French Theatre
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We have many established business links with local companies, and regularly send our students on language related visits to experience the use of languages in an International workplace environment.
Ancon Ltd - Spanish language student visit Decathlon - French business visit
ASSEAL plc - German language visit Forgemasters - German NVQ visit
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We often send Y10 and Sixth Form students to our Trust partner and other companies both in Sheffield and sometimes overseas on language related work experience projects.
Students on work experience in France and Spain
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Business Language Champions scheme – We work on regular mutually beneficial language based projects with our Y9/10 gifted and talented linguists an done of our valued Trust business partners - Gripple Ltd.
Students learn how and why they use languages in the work place at Gripple
- We offer Adult Evening Language Classes to our local and wider community in 19 languages! – see the ADULT EVENING section for further details, including how to enrol.