This year, Channing collaborated with Gymnasium am Neandertal near Düsseldorf and St Alban’s High School for Girls on the “Planet Partners” project, focussing on the topic of sustainability. Year 9 German learners investigated sustainable clothing to bring awareness on how important it is to act sustainably in everyday life and also at school.

We worked with our German Language Assistant Syster during extracurricular German speaking sessions to develop a collaborative Padlet with information about us and our school as a whole in German. We were also able to browse through the other schools’ posts and explore what they’ve been up to as well. For example, we all took part in a carbon footprint test and uploaded our result for everyone to see! After completing our Padlet introductions, we moved onto doing more individual research, such as where our favourite item of clothing was made, and if we believed it was created sustainably. Finally, we began planning and creating our Europe Day Fashion Show!

We worked with our German Language Assistant Syster during extracurricular German speaking sessions to develop a collaborative Padlet with information about us and our school as a whole in German. We were also able to browse through the other schools’ posts and explore what they’ve been up to as well. For example, we all took part in a carbon footprint test and uploaded our result for everyone to see! After completing our Padlet introductions, we moved onto doing more individual research, such as where our favourite item of clothing was made, and if we believed it was created sustainably. Finally, we began planning and creating our Europe Day Fashion Show!

We used a range of different recycled and reused clothing to keep it sustainable and safe for the environment. A few weeks prior to the show, a voluntary group of Year 9 German learners and Syster explored and picked out clothes from the Department’s drama costumes to try and piece together a few outfits for our models. We then laid out all the clothes we had picked, formed groups and designed the outfits for our group models in preparation for the 9th May Fashion Show.

Both German classes made their way to the Sixth Form Centre, where Syster introduced us to the voting system whilst the designated group models got prepared to walk. A member of each group presented a small description in German of their outfit, how it looked and their group's overall opinions on the outfit. As the models walked out, their chosen piece of German music was played and the members of the audience rated each group, adding their individual thoughts on the outfit and music. Once all the models had showed off their clothes and walked the runway, we voted on who we thought was the best and expressed why, in German.

In conclusion, we were able to take part in an educational project in collaboration with other schools and execute our research and knowledge in a fun and enjoyable way!