Flag of Trinidad
Swansea children are to create links with school pupils in one of the world’s most exotic tropical nations.
Five city schools are to forge partnerships with friends in Trinidad and Tobago- the Caribbean home to calypso, soca and limbo.
Alison Jenner, Swansea Council’s International Education Coordinator, said: “This is a potentially thrilling and rewarding link-up for young people on both sides of the Atlantic.
“One exciting aspect of the project will seek to exchange learning about sport with the 2010 Commonwealth Games in mind. Another will focus on learning about music as Welsh schools, famous for their choirs, link up with Trinidadian schools, famous for their steel pan and soca music.
“Schools will exchange much of their work using the website of the global online teachers’ community eLanguages.”
Swansea is the only Welsh area to have been selected with five other UK authorities to partner schools across Latin America and the Caribbean. The aim is to develop pupils’ intercultural awareness and Global Citizenship understanding.
Five schools, including Gowerton Comprehensive and primaries Penclawdd, Pen y Fro and Llanrhidian, will work with five partners schools in Trinidad and Tobago.
Plans are due to take a step forward in the next few days when Waunarlwydd Primary School headteacher Ruth Davies and Ms Jenner attend a British Council gathering in Mexico and highlight Swansea‘s successful Connecting Classrooms cluster of schools.
The event will allow partnerships to plan project work to fit into national curricula.
Did You Know?
* Young Swans defender Radanfah Abu Bakr is from Trinidad and Tobago. He has won eight caps for the national team- nicknamed the Soca Warriors.
* Trinidad and Tobago is a country that consists of the two main islands and many smaller landforms. It covers around 2,000 square miles. Wales covers around 8,000 square miles.
* The land rises to 3,100 feet above sea level. Wales’s highest point, Snowdon, reaches just 460 feet higher.
* Trinidad is seven miles from Venezuela, South America, but cultural links are largely with the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean.
* The climate is tropical, with a dry season for the first six months of the year followed by a wet season.
* The capital is Port of Spain. The national flower is the wild poinsettia or chaconia- a small, evergreen ornamental tree with bright red leaves.
