Sawston Village College, Cambs

Freedom if Not Free

This project is a combined project with Gymnasium 16 School

The project is an awareness campaign about the rights and freedoms that we are so fortunate to have in England and how we must open our eyes to different cultures and ways of living. It is about encouraging our community to be active global citizens and look after what we have but also learn from the experiences of others in other parts of the globe. The project is part of a wider focus for our Student International Forum (our school council is split into four ‘Fora’ that concentrate on specific parts of the school: Learning, Environment, Ethos and International) who is working towards embedding a global ethos and curriculum in SVC to fully prepare our students for life in this changing world.

The ‘Freedom is Not Free’ project has three elements to it: school-wide publication through assemblies, posters and arts competition, student-led lessons in MEP lessons and student-led workshops in local primary schools. The partnerships we have created with Gymnasium 16, Russia and G.S.Shwemu, Rwanda are key to our project objectives. We have also been working closely with our partner school in Russia to combine their project ‘To be a voice in the world’ with ours. Here, freedom is represented by being able to communicate to people around the globe through improved technology.

In our film and powerpoint story you will see how this has impacted on the pupils in both our school, the primary schools we visited and the pupils in Russia in terms of their thoughts and views. We have also put forward our plans to sustain the changes we have started to make through curriculum projects, continued contact with our primary schools and involvement of the wider community.