Global Learning and Engagement

Global learning and engagement provides all young Victorians, regardless of background or where they live, with skills, knowledge and global perspectives to become all they can be. Self-awareness, self-confidence and a willingness to embrace cultures, diversity and knowledge of the world and other societies are significant assets in today’s world.

The Global Learning and Engagement Accreditation Framework aims to showcase and reward school excellence in internationalising education. Global learning and engagement is the teaching of intercultural capabilities, development of global citizenship and connecting with the world to learn from best practice.

Benefits to Schools
The Global Learning and Engagement Framework will support schools to self-assess their focus on global learning and engagement, enabling them to better embed internationalising education to improve student outcomes and teacher capability. It will provide recognition and new tailored development opportunities for improvement, and will formalise a school's existing work in this space. Accreditation will provide a point of difference for schools to help them build pride and confidence within their local communities.

The support provided to accredited schools contributes to wider school improvement, including the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) by building practice excellence, setting expectations and promoting inclusion, intellectual engagement and self-awareness, and global citizenship.

Benefits include:

opportunities to showcase school excellence
networking opportunities to share learnings and gain insights from experts
access to opportunities, programs and networks
professional learning grants for teacher professional practice (level 2 and above)
financial grants and resourcing to support GL&E accreditation
consultancy or training support

The Victorian Principals Association (VPA) is appreciative of the support from the International Education Division and through the Global Learning and Engagement Common Funding Agreement, will continue to encourage and assist Victorian government primary principals to internationalise education.

This funding is provided to support the Department’s efforts to provide global learning and engagement opportunities for all Victorian primary school children by:

providing subsidies for VPA’s China student study tours;
promoting student and staff global learning and engagement opportunities to principals through communications materials, events, meetings and direct outreach to schools;
promotion of the internationalising agenda to VPA members through communications materials, events and meetings;
providing expert advice to the Department on international education policy and initiatives, through membership of appropriate reference groups and special purpose think-tanks;
attendance by VPA representatives at Department events supporting global learning and engagement; and
assisting in the identification of primary schools for visits by overseas delegations, consultation or research activities.

The main promotions to promote government primary principals to internationalise education this year from March–October 2019 include the VPA China Student Exchange Program and the VPA Canadian Study Tour.

Sister School Partnerships

Sister Schools Provide Students With Purpose
'The main thing is that it centres on development of the kids as a whole; being able to appreciate other cultures, to be able to talk and meet with people from other countries, learn about life in other places.' – A school principal, VIC

Sister schools: findings from research in Victoria
The report about sister schools commissioned by the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) was written for an internal departmental audience, but key aspects relating to student demand for Asian languages are summarised here, as several of its research objectives relate to this directly:

to capture the contribution that sister schools make to languages learning
to define and document the benefits of sister school partnerships to individual schools and the school education system more broadly
to identify effective practice in sister school partnerships, including in other states and overseas, in order to be able to inform and advise future partnership arrangements
to capture the contribution that sister schools make to the internationalisation of school education
to encourage more schools to enter into sister school partnerships.

Researchers used a combination of qualitative approaches (interviews with people involved) and quantitative approaches (online surveys) and also delivered a set of nine detailed case studies. Most sister school partnerships were found to exist with schools in Japan or China. One in five partnerships were established within the last year, but almost half had been established for more than five years.

General benefits for students
The report finds intercultural understanding to be the most commonly reported general benefit of sister school partnerships, followed by a range of personal development and awareness benefits. As one principal put it:

'When the Chinese kids come out here they are embraced as part of the culture and provide a kind of richness to our school. The main thing is that it centres on development of the kids as a whole; being able to appreciate other cultures, to be able to talk and meet with people from other countries, learn about life in other places.’

Motivation for students to learn languages
DET’s guidelines for sister school partnerships include increased enthusiasm to learn a language, among a range of expected benefits for students, and the report confirms this outcome. It is reported in two-thirds of cases that benefits for students include:

increased understanding of the importance of learning languages
increased motivation/enthusiasm to learn a language
support for language learning.

One principal said that:
'The relationships are really motivating for learning a language; students will continue a language until Year 12 having had that sort of experience, travelling to the other country, really enjoying it, feeling like they could communicate. However, when they travel over to us it probably has an even greater effect on the quality of the language skills of our students ...'’

Conditions for success
Challenges noted about sister school partnerships included costs of travel between countries and being able to devote the necessary time to making the partnership work. Importantly, the report also points to the necessity of having the right people involved. One principal commented:

'I cannot make a teacher have a relationship with another school, they have to want to do it.'

This dovetails with another finding, which is that having a champion of the sister school relationship on staff is a very positive indicator of likely success. At the same time, however, it is suggested that the loss of a champion from staff is a risk to the relationship. A consequent recommendation of the report is that the role of sister school champion’ be promoted as a leadership opportunity.

The report notes a number of key elements for the success of sister school relationships. It is not suggested that all of these are necessary, but rather that all should be considered when setting up a relationship:

the program is a documented priority within the school
full support from leadership team and school council
a champion with the support of the leadership team/team of champions to drive the program
succession planning within the Victorian school and their sister school in the event that critical staff members move on
matched expectations and objectives for the partnership. These may change and develop. However, they should be mutually agreed upon/acknowledged
reciprocal benefits for both schools
relatively equal level of commitment between schools
regular, yet flexible and accommodating communication
face-to-face communication between school staff early in the partnership.

Conclusion
The report makes a substantial contribution to describing what works in sister school partnerships and why. In particular, it confirms the positive contribution of well-run sister school partnerships in creating student demand for Asian languages.