Prince Bishops Community Primary School successfully met the criteria for the intermediate level of the British Council International School Award.

Here at Prince Bishops Primary School, we are keen to embed international activities across the whole school and throughout the curriculum. We aim to provide our children with new experiences and ways of living that are different to their own, in order to support them in further developing their understanding, respect and empathy for the practices of other cultures within the UK and across the world.

Please see our International Policy for further details:

For further informational about the International School Award please follow the web link:

Explore ways in which we have been embedding international activity into our school life…

International Christmas Tree

Year 5 were delighted to explore the international tree decorations that children from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, France, Romania, Greece, Germany and Belgium had made and sent to Prince Bishops. Once the tree was decorated, they were fascinated to explore the cards and information the children had sent us about their home countries and Christmas celebrations. 

Global Goal 5: Gender Equality

As part of our continuing Connecting Classrooms project, Year 5 discussed the importance of gender equality worldwide and why it remains such an issue. They explored ways that they felt they could make a difference and made posters to share their ideas with our partner schools in the UK and Zimbabwe.

Chinese New Year

From Nursery to Year 6, every class celebrated Chinese New Year in their own way. We have enjoyed: creating fortune cookies to give to friends; making Chinese dragons; reading letters from China about how children celebrate there; researching Chinese customs and traditions then creating our own PowerPoints; making lucky money envelopes; performing a dragon dance; and trying out chopsticks! 

International Christmas Decoration Exchange

Our Key Stage 1 children created their own Christmas tree decorations based on our local area. Year One created stained glass windows to represent St Cuthbert's cross while Year Two created sheep to represent St Cuthbert being a shepherd. We posted a decoration to 25 other primary schools across Europe with an information pack telling them about how we celebrate Christmas in the UK. We were very excited as we began to receive decorations back from each school and were fascinated by how they celebrate Christmas in their home countries too. We hung each of their decorations on our international Christmas tree....

Gratitude Project

Working alongside our partner schools in the UK and Zimbabwe, children considered what gratitude meant and discussed things which made them feel grateful. We shared ideas across all partner schools and our children in Year 5 were fascinated to see how many similarities there were between themselves and their peers in Zimbabwe. 

The Auckland Project

Our Year Five and Six children had the privilege of waving to His Royal Highness Prince Charles of the UK and Her Royal Highness Queen Letizia of Spain as they visited Auckland Castle and The Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland Market Place today. To prepare them for the visit, they immersed themselves in Spanish themed activities in order to have a greater understanding of Queen Letizia's culture.

They researched interesting facts about Spain, made fortune tellers to help learn Spanish greetings, learned about the history of the use of fans in Spain and how to communicate using them with different gestures. 

North East Festival of Languages

Key Stage 2 children have been exploring the importance of learning new languages and the benefits it can have.

They have presented their findings in posters to encourage others to learn a new language and their posters have been entered into the North East "Languages Open Doors" competition. We are sure we have a winner among us...!

International Christmas Decoration Exchange

The children in Year 5 created their own decorations to send to 30 schools across Europe. It was safe to say that we were delighted when we began to receive decorations back from schools in Poland, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Greece and Romania! We were also fascinated to find out how the children celebrate Christmas in their home countries. Our international Christmas tree looks simply stunning too...

PB Climate Conference

Following a whole-school assembly about global warming and the UN Climate Conference, each class at Prince Bishops held their own mini conference. They each found out more about what climate change is, what causes it and what we can do within our school to make a positive impact. We are sharing our "promises to the planet" with our partner schools in County Durham and Zimbabwe because we recognise that this is a global issue and we all need to work together to make a difference.

Open the document below to see the ways in which children at Prince Bishops are going to make a positive impact on climate change...

European Day of Languages

As always, Prince Bishops staff and children were keen to celebrate the diversity of culture and language across Europe in acknowledgement of the annual European Day of Languages.

This year, we decided to follow the children's enthusiasm for French so Mrs Myers took the opportunity to visit each class in KS1 and KS2 to talk to them about  effective strategies for language learning. Children then immediately put these strategies into practice by understanding and responding to a French song in less than 20 minutes. Some children even managed to sing all of the words! 

If you would like to practise the song at home, the link is below:

Throughout the morning, children also spent time researching different aspects of French daily life and culture, choosing their preferred media to present their findings. 

Meanwhile, EYFS enjoyed exploring the French language with an interactive session delivered by Lingotots.

Mrs Brown even managed to get the after school club involved with a game of French Bingo!

Express Yourself Festival of Languages

Children from EYFS and KS1 enjoyed watching a French puppet show on YouTube Live (performed by Nathalie Paris) as part of the North East Express Yourself Festival of Languages.

Parents can also enjoy the puppet show with their children by watching it again on the link below:

European Voices - Portrait of a Continent

In collaboration with many other primary schools in both England and throughout wider Europe, our upper KS2 pupils considered the most useful phrases that visitors to our country would benefit from knowing. After agreeing on the 5 most useful phrases, we decided how to spell them phonetically in order to aid non-English speakers in pronouncing them correctly. Pupils from across Europe also did the same in their native languages. We then shared our results with each other on the website below:

International Christmas Decoration Exchange

The children in Year 4 were challenged to create a Christmas decoration that reflected their local heritage and culture. They designed and made these beautiful tree decorations, inspired by the stained glass windows of Durham Cathedral and based on the design of the St. Cuthbert cross. They sent their decorations to 22 different schools across Europe including France, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal! They also created a presentation to show the schools how we celebrate Christmas in the UK. 

They were delighted when these large brown envelopes began to arrive from the other schools…

Look at the beautiful decorations that they received from all over Europe…

They also received information packs and presentations from each school about how Christmas is celebrated in their own country. The children were fascinated and couldn’t wait to identify where each decoration had come from on a map of Europe.

Diwali

Reception Class have really enjoyed celebrating Diwali by making Rangoli patterns with coloured rice; designing Mendhi patterns; and creating beautiful diva lamps to light the way.

What School Looks Like During a Pandemic

Our children and staff  in both countries are eager to see how school has changed in their partner schools, due to the global pandemic. Our cluster schools in the UK have created Power-Points to share with our partner schools in Zimbabwe, showing what our new school routines look like. We can't wait until their learners return to school so we can compare how similar and different school-life has become for them. Click on the PDF document below, to view our presentation.

European Day of Languages

To celebrate this year, each class learned a greeting in a different European language. See how many you can recognise…

Trip to Zimbabwe!

Mrs Myers travelled to Zimbabwe to visit our partner schools in the town of Gweru: Lundi Park Primary, Stanley Primary, Bumburwi Primary, St. Pauls Primary and Jairos Jiri Naran Centre (specialist school for the deaf).

She met some wonderful staff and children and had the pleasure of teaching some students about what life is like in the UK.

She presented the book that our pupils had made on the theme of Quality Education (Global Goal for Sustainable Development 4) and was intrigued to explore what Quality Education  means for the students and teachers in both countries. 

Before leaving the UK, our Prince Bishops children had a wealth of questions about life in Zimbabwe that they wanted Mrs Myers to find the answers to! She took lots of photos and videos to answer their questions and presented the findings in a whole school assembly. Our students were fascinated by what she had found out...

Quality Education for All

The KS2 classes completed a series of activities, linked to the theme of an inclusive and equitable quality education for all children around the world. They explored what quality education is and how it can be achieved; why some children in the world are unable to access education; why education is important; and how schools, worldwide, can make sure all children are treated equally and given the same opportunities. Each class recorded their findings, which were then compiled to create a book to share with our partner schools in Zimbabwe.

Chinese New Year

Our whole school celebrated Chinese New Year, with a wonderful Chinese feast at lunchtime.

We even had some fortune cookies to munch on, while we enjoyed watching some of our talented children perform a dragon dance!

Stories Without Words

Our Year One pupils watched a short film about children around the world, who were unable to access school for a variety of reasons. It affected the class quite deeply and they were particularly surprised to discover that some families around the world cannot afford to send their children to school. This prompted a simple discussion about the Global Goals for Sustainable Development and every child's right to be able to access quality education by the year 2030. They planned a story together and chose pictures to represent each part. We then sent the story to our partner schools in Zimbabwe, in order for them to add words to our pictures.

Connecting Classrooms Partnership

This week, we have been honoured to host the headteachers from our partner schools in Gweru, Zimbabwe, alongside one of their inspectors for education. They were delighted  to recognise some of their own children's work on our displays and to see how much Prince Bishops children have enjoyed completing the joint tasks with them. Our children were thrilled when they visited our classes to see how we learn. Our special visitors commented on how impressed they were by both the learning and the behaviour of our pupils.

Eurovision Song Contest

To celebrate the European Day of Languages this year, every class was set the challenge of learning a song in a different language, which they would then perform in "The Prince Bishops Eurovision Song Contest." We were fortunate enough for this to coincide with the visit from our partner teachers in Zimbabwe, who agreed to be our judges for the event. They were overwhelmed by the talents of all of our pupils but they voted for the lucky winners to be Year One, who claimed the trophy with glee!

Everyone Has a Story to Tell (National Writing Day)

After the success of our “Extreme Reading” project with the schools in Zimbabwe, we were keen to take on our next joint challenge! In celebration of National Writing Day, each class at Prince Bishops was set the task of writing their very own stories – no rules and no restrictions. The sky was the limit! We selected our favourite story from each class and sent them to our partner schools in Zimbabwe for them to enjoy.

We were delighted when our partner schools in Zimbabwe replied with their own stories...

Extreme Reading (World Book Day)

We are thrilled to have become part of a cluster of 5 County Durham schools that have teamed up with 5 schools in Zimbabwe for a Connecting Classrooms project. As part of World Book Day, our first task was to share photos between the schools, of our children and staff taking part in some “Extreme Reading.” The children and staff of Lundi Park Primary School in Zimbabwe were kind enough to judge our photos and choose their favourite, with our winner receiving a book token.

Our children at Prince Bishops were then overjoyed to discover that the Zimbabwean schools had sent us their photos to enjoy too.

Tourist Places in the UK

We were both honoured and delighted to receive a message from Temar Government Primary School in Bangladesh, asking us to be their partner school. We set to work straight away on a joint project, sharing information about tourist areas in our home countries. Our Year 3 children produced some wonderful information leaflets about tourist areas in the UK, to share with the children from Temar Government Primary School. We then received some wonderful photos back from them.

European Day of Languages

During a whole school assembly to launch the day, children learnt about why it is important to celebrate the diversity of languages in Europe – and indeed, around the world. To illustrate how easy and fun it can be to discover another language, they quickly learnt to sing their favourite song – “Baby Shark”- in Bahasa Indonesian in under 10 minutes!

The KS2 classes then went back to their classrooms to learn greetings, songs and games in a language from a European country, before teaching these new language skills to the children in KS1. The children (and teachers!) immersed themselves in their new language and a great day was had by all.

The World Cup

To celebrate the Football World Cup, each class was allocated a nation to support and the class with the most successful team was promised a World Cup party at the end of the competition. However, in order to earn the party, each class was given a week to find out as much as they could about their chosen nation, before presenting their findings to the rest of the school.

The World Cup Week ended with a whole school assembly, where each class taught the rest of the school some interesting facts about their chosen nation.

Chinese New Year

We began Chinese New Year with a whole school assembly to launch the significance of the celebration. Our Reception children - who had been learning about Chinese New Year already - performed a dragon dance for the rest of the school. From this the children were presented with a range of objects and discussed how they may link to the Chinese festival. We then moved onto Chinese greetings which children were eager to learn.

With the children engrossed in the celebration, they visited each different teacher with the rest of their cohort throughout the day. During each session, they were delivered activities which were designed to teach them about: the history of the festival; the associated customs and traditions; the beliefs of the Chinese people; dance; art; and food.

Children were able to use their learning to take part in their own celebration of Chinese New Year, once back with their class teacher in their own classrooms. Our children have been fascinated by Chinese New Year customs and traditions and they were keen to celebrate!

Dia de los Muertos

Our KS2 children investigated the Mexican festival – Dia de los Muertos. In some classes the topic was linked to their Literacy topic where they completed diary entries and fictional narratives of the festival. In other classes, Art and DT were chosen to create brightly coloured sugar skulls and papel picado (a traditional paper cutting). During this celebration, children were encouraged to use Spanish vocabulary with the Year 3 class continuing this language throughout the year. Children were enthralled by the celebration and produced some fabulous work linked to the topic.

European Day of Languages

We started the academic year by combining the launch of our school house teams with the European Day of Languages.

KS2 looked at a vast collection of European flags, exploring the meaning of each. They investigated what the different colours, symbols, words and shapes meant on each and how this linked to the European nation that the flag represented. Children then worked in house teams to use these ideas and design a flag to represent the motto and principles of their own, respective house teams.

At the end of the day, our school came together in an assembly where we shared our flags and the meaning behind them. We spoke about how the countries’ flags we had explored had influenced our decision.