American Academy Junior School, Larnaca, Cyprus

The American Academy Larnaca
is a non-profit, private, co-educational school offering pre-school to university entrance education.

The school motto "to grow and to serve" is characterised by a democratic and positive climate,
respect for each other, understanding and co-operation between students and staff.

Contact between Working With Others and the American Academy Junior School began in January 2011, when we were invited to work in collaboration with STEMSUSSEX to deliver a 5 day enrichment programme that included Antweight robots, control technology and maths challenges.

Activities such as this, highlight how effective children are at sharing ideas and resources and the difficulties they experienced working collaboratively and co-operatively together prompted the staff to consider the need for a more focussed introduction of the Principles of WWO to the school.

Our initial schedule between October 2011 - July 2012 has instigated the
Essential WWO training programme of classroom activities, trust building for pupils, and pre- & de-briefing exercises. The eight, tailored days of training and support, will take place over three separate visits and include:

• an INSET for all of the staff team
• staff meetings
• WWO training for support staff
• parent workshops
• class observations
• supervision of staff 

With WWO based in the UK, travel costs and time efficiencies clearly have to be taken into consideration when we schedule the plan and the practicalities of international work.

Working in collaboration with a number of schools in a location can help spread travel an accommodation costs, and we would be interested in hearing from other schools in Cyprus that would be interested learning more or taking up the Working With Others programme.

For more information, please e-mail Cathy Ota directly on cathy@cathyota.com