Starting a Sister School Partnership

Collaborating with another school

Maintain an effective partnership

Practical Hints for Collaborating

Collaborative Activities

Create a Collaborative Activity

Current Collaborative Activities

Etiquette, Netiquette and Cyber Safety

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10 Handy Hints

1. The focus is on the relationship

The focus is on developing a constructive relationship with your partner school. Always remember this and use this to evaluate all activities you plan and complete together.

2. A team approach helps

Develop a team approach at your school. You will be able to gain interest and buy-in if you inform your school community and parents of what you’re doing.

3. Publicise and celebrate your work with the wider school community.

4. Establish a Student Management Team (SMT)

Utilise the skills of your students and explore the possibility of establishing a Student Management Team (SMT). An SMT is a group of students whom you can trust and who will thrive given the opportunity to lead the collaborative activities within your class or school. These students can assume responsibility for carriage of the collaborative activities: they can help to schedule and lead activities as well as share communication with your partner school. You can give them tasks such as collecting and collating content, editing writing, establishing a blog or wiki on the wikispace etc.

Use your SMT to generate new, imaginative ideas for what to do next and to communicate with the SMT in your partner school.

You’ll be surprise (and impressed!) with what your students can do if you give them the chance!

5. Make expectations and sanctions clear

Early on, discuss appropriate behaviours and expectations throughout the life of the BRIDGE Project with your students. Develop an Acceptable Use Policy (if you don’t already have one in place at school) and talk about Etiquette, Netiquette and cultural sensitivities. (You’ll find more useful information on this in the Getting Started collaborative activity.)

6. Schedule your involvement

Set aside time each week for your collaborative activity work and have a plan of what you’ll be doing. Make sure the plan has been developed in partnership with your BRIDGE partner school. Set timelines and deadlines and stick to them.

7. Reflect and improve

Reflect, reiterate and improve. Education is all about ongoing improvement and flexibility. Build this into your approach to including of the BRIDGE Project in your classroom.

8. Have an artefact of your work

Develop a product (or set of products) as an artefact of your partnership – what will you work towards together and what evidence/products will you have at the end to show for your work?

9. Use a range of technologies

Use a range of technologies and old fashioned communication methods to keep the relationship going. Mix it up and stay interested.

10. Ask for help

Seek help when you’re not sure.
Keeping it going: sustaining the relationship
The level of involvement and interaction is completely up to you and will be defined by the class time you are able to allocate to the task and your access (and your partner colleague’s access) to technology.

It is up to both of you to effectively facilitate and sustain the relationship.

Long distance relationships can be very rewarding but they are not always easy. Sometimes the expectation of one partner does not coincide with the other.

It is vital that you work hard to keep communication channels between your colleague and yourself open, vigorous and sustained.