Bolton teacher sent to Siberia

For the teacher at SS Simon and Jude CE Primary School travelled to the remote region during the school holidays to share her teaching in a private school in Sakhalin Island.

Mrs Connor was chosen after her school in Great Lever became the first school internationally to achieve master status for its teaching of the International Primary Curriculum (IPC).

She said: “I spent the week teaching, observing and sharing good practice in teaching and learning in the school with all of the children and the staff.

“Over the course of the week, I taught all the children in the school

“This enabled the teachers to observe good teaching and delivery to ensure that the children were actively engaged in their own learning.”

The trip was funded by the World Class Learning Group.

Her pupils in Bolton wrote letters, made video messages, took photographs for Mrs Connor to take on the trip.

She said: “The children were much more enthusiastic with their topic on ‘communities’ when they found out that I would be hand delivering their work to children in Siberia.

“The learning that took place for this topic was fantastic and the children were really motivated. I also had the pleasure of seeing the same reaction on the other side of the world when I gave the children in Sakhalin their letters.”

Mrs Connor said that educational deployments like this promote global citizenship.

She added: “This was evident when a member of staff visited a tropical rainforest after an IPC conference and came back to share her experiences with the children in my class who had been learning about the topic and felt motivated to want to help by fundraising to sponsor a jaguar as part of the WWF.

“Teaching is a vocation and for me and I like to train teachers and develop their skills so that it impacts on as many children as possible.

"I can only do so much in my classroom but by sharing good practice with other teachers the impact is felt far beyond my reach.”

As well teaching in the school, she was given sight seeing opportunities including a visit to Okhostkoye.

Mrs Connor said: “We had a picnic by the lake in blizzard conditions.

“There were local men fishing on the lake as they had cut a hole in the ice.

"It was too far out on the lake to have a good look and without a snowmobile it was rather tricky to get to them especially considering I was 21 weeks pregnant and I didn’t want to slip on the ice."

She also visited Lennon Square, Victory Square and Gagarin Park.

She said: “There was a great mix of building designs and styles as the island is heavily influenced by the old Soviet style buildings as well as modern designs.

“It amazed me to see how the roads and paths would be cleared in no time after a snow fall and it did not impact on daily life or transport."

Headteacher Simon Bramwell said: “SS Simon and Jude has a long and a proud history of providing school improvement across a number of schools.

“In recent years we have expanded our work into Manchester and Merseyside but this request to help out in Russia has been something else.

“Teachers who work in other schools come back with a broader and richer experience that benefits all the children.

“I have been accused of a few things in my time as head, but never sending a teacher to Siberia, either metaphorically or literally.

"But I am happy to hold my hands up this time and was really pleased that Beatrice was able to take full advantage of this wonderful opportunity.”