The Project

The Building Blocks Scholarship is a project devised and supported by the Eastbourne Branch of the English-Speaking Union. This project is being conducted in collaboration with The University of Glasgow.

The project has clearly defined educational goals:

• The Scholar is required to work with schools across the southern hemisphere forging links and generating academic data on educational provision that will be shared with ESU branches nationally and internationally and with the wider academic community through publication of the book Building Blocks.
• The Scholar is required to work with our key school partners in the UK and the USA on global citizenship and geography education projects over the academic year 2006 – 2007.

The key schools chosen operate across the primary and secondary sectors with three key schools in England and three key schools in Scotland. The schools also operate across the independent and state sectors and across the religious schools and non-denominational sectors.

The key schools involved are:

• Primary Sector
• New Lodge School. A preparatory school in Dorking, Surrey.
• St Ronan’s School. A state primary school in Bonhill, West Dunbartonshire.

These projects are being conducted in collaboration with the Global Citizenship Unit at Glasgow University.

• Secondary Sector
• George Heriot’s School. One of Scotland’s leading independent schools in Edinburgh.
• Jubilee High School. A state comprehensive in Addlestone, Surrey.
• Moira House School. An independent girl’s school in Eastbourne, Sussex.
• Our Lady and St Patrick’s High School. A catholic comprehensive in Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire.

Our partner school in the United States of America is the 21st Century Learning Center at Little Valley in New York.

Our University partner is the Faculty of Education at Glasgow University. The Dean is Professor James Conroy.

The stated aim of the project at University level is for training teachers to become aware of the potential in all teachers for new and innovative ways of approaching our teaching and learning with particular reference to global citizenship and ecological matters.

The English-Speaking Union is arguably Britain’s most prestigious educational charity (home to the John Smith Memorial Mace, Schools Mace, debating competition, Secondary Schools Exchange scholarships and the political internships of Capitol Hill and the Palace of Westminster). This independent, voluntary body aims to promote international understanding through the English language.

• The Building Blocks Scholarship aims to raise awareness of the opportunities the ESU offers amongst all students in the UK irrespective of their geographical location or educational establishment.
• The scholar, William Glover, views this scholarship opportunity as “a vehicle by which the ESU seeks to make its scholarship opportunities available to as wide a field of applicants as possible and in so doing nurture the very best of Britain’s educational talent”.
• One of the stated aims of this scholarship is that through the publicity of our national media partner The Times Educational Supplement we will have as many students as possible logging-on to the project site and in so doing accessing the ESU site and its wealth of educational opportunity.

The project route begins in South America journeying through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.
The Route then travels to Australia, New Zealand, Central America and Cuba concluding in New York in August 2007.

We hope that you enjoy following the route over the academic year and that you both gain from and contribute too the work of this project.

Mrs Jane Laycock
President
The English-Speaking Union Eastbourne Branch.