IConnect International, Innovative, Inspirational and Informative Creative Connections for Communication and Collaboration Teaching Together Through Technology IConnecT is a project that aims to develop students’ skills and confidence through a variety of innovative and creative teaching strategies. The rationale behind the project is that we live in a rapidly changing world and schools need to respond to this by delivering engaging lessons that promote the use of new technologies and equip our students with the skills they need to succeed beyond the classroom. In addition we will be focusing on the need to develop professionally as staff and to share our knowledge and expertise with one another in order to improve students’ learning. The project aims to achieve these objectives through a range of activities. These include: - Using new technologies such as Skype to deliver live lessons between partner countries - Teaching core skills such as Maths using a foreign language with live lessons shared between countries and allowing students to plan and teach Maths lessons in another language - Developing opportunities for SEN students to access Modern Foreign Languages. SEN students in partner schools will devise a project involving MFL to be delivered to local primary schools and will share their experiences through the forum of video conferencing - Students working collaboratively to create a list of criteria for an effective MFL lesson and then devising and teaching a lesson based on these criteria. Five partner schools from United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Finland will be involved in the project, each with their own area of expertise and, although the project is very much a shared enterprise, each school will have responsibility for overseeing a specific project activity. All work completed during the project will be shared on an eTwinning Twin Space, the project website and in the termly project newsletter. We are aware of the need to celebrate our successes but these tools also represent an important forum for discussion and feedback and will be vital for monitoring the impact of the project. We aim to have several tangible outcomes during the course of the project as well as longer term benefits. By the end of the project we will have developed a bank of teaching and learning resources across a range of subjects and these will be ready for future use within our schools and openly available for all other schools via our website. We will have given staff in a range of subjects the opportunity to network with their peers across Europe and enhance their professional development through the sharing of good practice. In addition to this we will be encouraging students to develop key skills such as collaborative learning, critical thinking, team teaching and giving them the opportunity to learn core subjects in a different, more creative way. For full details of our project, please see the Project Overview which is attached to the form.