South West UK Brussels Office - Monks Park School
The South West UK Brussels Office gives the SW a unified voice in Brussels. The office works to ensure the European Institutions fully understand the needs and opportunities of the South West of England and its sub-regions
Live from Brussels !
The partnership between Monks Park School and the South West UK Brussels Office was to be more of a virtual link. Due to the geographical limitations involved, Sadie Bendall from the school and Marcus Scheuren from the SWUKBO decided they were going to use e-mail, internet and video conferencing to forge their links.
This original plan changed, however, when Sadie invited Marcus over to the schools’ international day which was held in July of the summer term. Marcus agreed to attend and went to the school on the 8th July to talk to the students. He spoke to them for about 2 hours, mainly in French, and this enabled to the students to really be submerged in another language and culture for the first time ever. His presentation covered what life is like in Brussels and Belgium, working in and for Europe and what it is like working within a multi-lingual office environment.
Marcus was very impressed with the group. "Although they were only in their first year of French they could understand quite a lot of what I said (maybe with a little help from Sadie!) and I was also impressed to hear they also learn German, Spanish and even Italian."
The day was a real success and has now cemented their relationship, which has led to them deciding to do some regular video conferencing in addition to their proposed e-mail activities, after the summer break.
Sadie said: "Having a contact in a foreign country will definitely make language learning more real for the students and give them a better knowledge of business. For the school it will be an opportunity to raise the profile of languages in the curriculum too. This is not always clear to the students given its current nature and content."
