To get to know each other, the British and German pupils first completed individual profiles to create a Friendship Book / Freundebuch and exchanged this with their partner pupils at the other school.

By writing various scripts and interview questions, and recording a radio show, pupils were able to introduce themselves to one another and practice speaking the target language which greatly supported them in their GCSE preparation. Pupils exchanged questionnaires about the topics of WWI commemoration and remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As well as allowing pupils from the UK and Germany to communicate in an interactive and engaging way, the thematic focus of the show ensured a cross-curricular approach, involving not just students of German/English, but also pupils studying History for Abitur/A-Level. The schools have now established a strong relationship and teachers are in direct contact through a shared eTwinning space.

Students at both schools focussed on what it is like for young people to live in countries that are part of the European Union. To start, students thought of their own multiple choice questions to create ‘citizenship tests’ and sent these to their partners in the other school, with an aim to discover what perceptions each group had of what is typically British or German.

Tim and Freya then set up a YouTube channel as a platform for communication between the two sets of students; students created various videos about EU citizenship, what it means to be British and German and uploaded them on to their channel in order to work together through technology. The project successfully created a long-lasting platform for bicultural debate and motivated students to think about their identity from a different perspective, giving them the chance to exchange ideas with students of their own age in the other country.

Charlotte and Joanne's project gave their pupils the opportunity to practice their writing skills in the target language whilst allowing them to have fun.
To start, questionnaires were sent to the partner school, allowing pupils to answer questions about themselves and their lifestyle. Pupils found this exciting, as it gave them the chance to get to know people of their own age from their partner school and compare different answers. These questionnaires were then used by the children to develop descriptions for the main characters in their short story, William and Stephanie.

Charlotte’s class in the UK wrote the first paragraph of the story. Joanne’s German pupils then corrected the text the British pupils had written in German and continued with the second part. This writing-correcting system was then used for the rest of the story, up until the very end. Before filming a scene from their story, pupils worked in groups in order to develop a script for the scene they had decided to film and thought of the material they would need whilst shooting the scene. The film is a lovely lasting memory of this joint project.