The best job in the world

Why being the International Coordinator at Lambeth Academy is probably the best job in the world….

A day like any other during the year, but this one really tipped me off to write this down:

Arrive at school and greet group of pupils and teacher in atrium who are off to attend the master class at Kings College for the Model of United Nations.

9am The Orchard Primary School arrives with 15 pupils and teachers. They will be using our recording studio to record a number of recitations in Arabic from the Koran and produce a CD. I talk to the pupils about how they have chosen their parts and what the meaning is. We will use their CD in RE lessons as well.

I hang up the certificate Lambeth Academy has received for participating in Spring Day Europe and its link to the European Parliament.

I receive email confirmation from Volvic in connection with UNICEF that after my enquiry about this German competition we are able to participate with our kids learning German. Each poster in form of a water drop will generate a donation and new wells will be built in Ethiopia. I look at UNICEF website and mentally plan assembly with all the resources.
One of the PTA emails to invite me to discuss the ongoing planning for the whole school family International Event scheduled for early September.
I receive an email from the Portuguese Achievement Advisor to thank me for meeting with her the day before and she is looking forward to the Portuguese Achievement Award at Lambeth Academy which will be held in the next couple of weeks.
I work on various emails regarding the last preparations for the Somali Achievement Award being hosted by Lambeth Academy in the following week. I need to organise the display boards for the Somali Artwork which will be exhibited.

Two days before I was browsing the Global Gateway and saw a French school outside Paris looking for a partner. Interesting. At the same time I updated our school’s profile, but have not contacted school yet. So the day before today I suddenly receive an email from that school asking if I am interested in partnering our two schools. Coincidence? Today I spent writing various emails to the teacher discussing our possible partnership. They want to do a musical in English and would like to get English kids involved. They will be visiting in May 2010. Perfect match, because our music department has a project of creating an international CD with all our existing partner schools anyway. This should be great.
An email from one of the teachers from our Chinese Partner school arrives in my inbox telling me that they have spent weeks trying to get access to our school video on YouTube. I answer back that I will put a DVD into the post.

Eleanor knocks on the door and asks if I have now sent off her pen pal letter to our Indian Partner school. I tell her I am still waiting for some more of other kids.

I receive an email from the Head Teacher from St. Therese School, Chicago, who visited us in Spring. She just thought about how we are doing and I email her back that the day before, Georgia- she led the visitors through the school on the day – had come to me to ask me if I could please send a letter she had written to the school and one for a potential pen friend to the school in Chicago. I also reiterate my wish to partner with the school and the Head emails back that we should really get going to partner key stage 3 and she will organise a high school in Chicago for our older students.

I discuss final legal / contract info with other Secondary School in Lambeth who are keen to share our German and Spanish Foreign Assistant, who are coming back to London for a second year.

The SSAT emails me to discuss the final arrangements for the Annual Chinese Conference which we host this year at Lambeth Academy. I need to speak to our Chef, because 50 more guests will mean a lot more Chinese cooking for him.

I greet regular guests in our canteen who come in once a week from Holy Trinity Church for a year 7 workshop and also help us with our work in Sierra Leone. I am surprised to see the canteen, as I had completely forgotten, that the chef and I had always discussed national food days and today is a Jamaican day. There are flags everywhere and very tasty food.

I bump into Vice Principal and tell him what I need to add to SEF and Development Plan on Community Cohesion and how our Internationalism has already helped towards it.

The British Council writes email to acknowledge me registering our school for the Mock European Parliament event in November. I am asked how we have been since the participation in the G20 summit. I write back that we had the European Commissioner for Multilingualism visiting us.

Promethean emails me more details about the group of Japanese visitors from the Educational sector visiting us soon before summer holidays.

I receive “thank you email” from Epsom College , our UK Secondary partner. I had sent them the questions our and the German Partner School 6^th formers have decided on for the key stage 5 discussion forum on the 7^th October. Pupils from Epsom will join in with the visitors from Germany.

A colleague sends me the funding application for the visit from Lambeth Academy kids to our German partner school in December. It is finally happening.

Lambeth Council sends me more info on the project “Youth Mayor Fund”, because I have already written to colleagues that I want our kids to get involved in local politics.

A music colleague comes to see me and tells me about the school Samba band which is practising for the street festival the following Saturday.

I still haven’t answered the request that came in yesterday of a Dutch school to come and visit us in Jan 10. Must investigate and respond.

Haven’t checked my Rafi.ki email account, but have notification that I have new mail.

Our Chinese Consultant comes in to see me as she has just come back from China where she attended the interviews for our new Voluntary Chinese Teachers. She also tells me that the Director of the Confucius Institute at Southbank University was very impressed with my vision for the school when she last met me and has contacted Hanban. Hanban has actually agreed to consider Lambeth Academy for Confucius Classroom Status and will help us setting up a centre for Chinese Culture for the use of the local community and our own pupils. They will also sponsor the idea of the summer camp for our older pupils to go to China for a crash course of Business Chinese.

Today our cooking group of hard to reach boys will be cooking a dish which is on the website of our Indian Partner School. I join them to take pictures. Our boys do an amazing job and later other teachers arrive to taste the food as well. Our Chinese consultant stayed as well and is so impressed that she agrees to come back the following week to help with a Chinese Dish.

I get back to the office. Next door the Portuguese teacher practises music with pupils for the Portuguese Achievement Award.

I finally go home. The tickets for my holiday in Sri Lanka are on the table. I got married there and personally I so wish I also had a partnership with a school there.

Let us see what is going to happen next…

Ennelyn Schmidt-Roberts