The Board of Education is keen to strengthen the link between the Diocese of Manchester and the Diocese of Lahore in Pakistan. In March 2015 and February 2017, groups of teachers and headteachers went to visit our friends and colleagues in Lahore, to provide training on a range of different subjects. In 2015, a team of four taught courses on leadership and management, the creative curriculum and outdoor classes, phonics and early and foundation years. More recently, a team of 11 held courses on English everything from phonics to Shakespeare! In turn, a group of three headteachers and a deputy head from schools in Lahore and Rawalpindi came to England in June 2016. They were here for a month and each visited four different schools. They saw the different teaching styles that are employed in our schools, and how children benefit from different learning techniques, depending on their own capabilities. We are hugely grateful to all the staff and governors who provided placements for our visitors and made their month in the UK unforgettable for them and for us! In 2017 a group of nine pupils from the Diocese of Lahores Mother School, St Denys in Murree spent the week at Bury CE High School. They stayed with families of the schools pupils and, when they werent in classrooms, they visited Manchester, the Trafford Centre, York and Alton Towers. Col Azim Ilyas, the Diocesan Director of Education in Lahore, is an ever-present colleague during these visits. On the last occasion he joined our Board of Education AGM; he joined our Director at our national Association of Anglican Diocesan Directors of Education (AADDE) in Windsor (where he saw the Queen pass-by on her visit from Windsor Castle to Royal Ascot); and he joined the whole delegation, including staff and children, at an outdoor Shakespeare performance of The Comedy of Errors at Speke Hall. If you would like to be involved in any future host visits or host colleagues from Lahore on any of their visits to the diocese, or if you would like to create a link between your school and a school in Lahore, please get in touch with Ruth Gent. |
