Dover Grammar wins international status

GEOGRAPHY and history classes conducted in French and Spanish and connections with countries including Ethiopia and South Korea have helped earn an international award for Dover Grammar School for Boys.

The grammar has been awarded International School status by the British Council in recognition of the worldwide flavour of education it provides.

The award is presented to schools that give a global dimension to their lessons. Dover boys’ grammar achieved the honour in 2008 and has now been recognised again after increasing activities even more.

Rebecca Picton, of the British Council, said: “DGSB has developed an impressive international portfolio and the work is a credit to the school and the community”

Lessons include detailed work of foreign countries in geography, bilingual Year 8 and 9 students studying history and geography in either French or Spanish and visits and exchanges with partner schools in South Korea, Taiwan, Holland, France and Germany.

In February, the school hosted a party of Government and Education representatives from the Incheon region of South Korea, and has been developing links with Ethiopia through regular exchanges of artwork and letters between Ethiopian students and students in the DGSB lower school.

Headteacher Richard Moxham said: “Communication through art has proved extremely successful with our partner School in Ethiopia. The scheme of work developed by our art department to address the cultural differences of the students has been adopted by our partner Link Ethiopia.

“They have made the ideas available to other Ethiopian schools and we plan to offer Sixth Form students the chance to visit and work in Ethiopia. A joint exhibition of Key Stage 3 artwork from both schools will be taking place in Addis Ababa this month.

“We are looking forward in the next three years to developing these and many other initiatives as we strive to enable our learners to become international citizens and the leaders of tomorrow.”