St Martin’s Primary in Sighthill has been awarded the intermediate level of the British Council’s International School Award in recognition of its work “to bring the world into the classroom.”
Fostering an international dimension in the curriculum is at the heart of the British Council’s work with schools, so that young people gain the cultural understanding and skills they need for life and work in today’s world.
(Image: GordonTerris/Newsquest)
At St Martin’s, children have partnerships with schools in Jamaica and Malawi; they learn Spanish and celebrate the country’s culture and food; and they mark an assortment of UNICEF celebration days and global events, such as Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.
An enthusiastic group of primary sixes – Kacper, Salwa, Yuexin and Abraham, who are all 10 – explained that just some of the things they have been up to in Spanish class included flamenco dancing and burrito-making.
“We enjoyed it a lot,” says Kacper, adding helpfully: “The Spanish for hello is hola.”
(Image: GordonTerris/Newsquest)
School captains Corneille Lukusa and Sahar Mazar, who are both 11 and in primary seven, said a key part of the international work was their partnerships with schools around the world.
“We set up a Reading for Pleasure partnership with Milk River Primary School in Clarendon, Jamaica,” explained Sahar.
“We talked to pupils there about why it is important to read just because you enjoy it rather than because your teacher tells you to.”
She added: “It was interesting to learn what books the pupils are reading and where they read because sometimes they read outside in Jamaica. We can’t do that in Glasgow because of the weather.”
Corneille added: “We also wrote letters to Limbe Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi and had video calls. They became our pen-pals and we told them what our school was like, and what was the same and what was different. Their school is much bigger than ours.”
Sahar said: “It made us realise how lucky we are to have so much here in our school, like equipment. It made us feel very grateful.”
Everyone gets involved in everything at St Martin’s. Pupils in the school’s enhanced provision unit, who have additional support needs, decorated biscuits with the Jamaican flag and learned worldwide nursery rhymes in Makaton sign language.
The school, formed from a merger of St Stephen’s and St Kevin’s primaries in 2022, has 287 pupils, housed in a striking red building at the heart of Sighthill Community Campus.
“We speak 32 different languages here, from Ukrainian and Arabic to Mandarin and Polish,” says headteacher Donna McKay.
“Corneille speaks French at home, Sahar speaks Farsi – so international education is central to everything we do.”
She adds: “We chose Spanish to learn as a school because no-one speaks it here already, so everyone is learning at the same level. We felt it was important for children whose mother tongue is English, to understand how difficult it can be to learn a new language.”
The school wins lots of awards, acknowledges the headteacher. It’s a story massage centre of excellence, it has achieved Rights Respecting status, a gold SportScotland accolade – the list is long and impressive.
“We don’t do all these things to win awards, we do it because all these initiatives give children a much wider learning experience,” says Donna.
“The British Council award is fantastic – it reflects the hard work of our team, children and families, and shows our ongoing commitment to celebrating the diversity within our school community and beyond.
“But for me, most importantly, it shows that attainment here at St Martin’s is so much wider than the Curriculum for Excellence levels.
“Our school doesn’t do anything in isolation, it’s all about the totality of the curriculum.”
She pauses. “We want the children to realise there is a big world out there, where their voice is important.”
