Hebden Royd Primary School Skype meeting with Twin town school Johannes Grundschule in Allagen, Warstein

23rd April 2012

Part of my Mayoral theme is school twinning.

We had our very first inter primary school international 'skype' meeting in Hebden  Royd and as far as I am aware the first primary school link up internationally in Calderdale. I was totally elated to have an extremely important visitor - Rebecca Taylor MEP -our own Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and Humber she is local to Hebden Royd from todmorden and  I was delighted that we shared the same 'vision' for the future development of our young people and international links between our schools


Year five pupils from Hebden Royd C of E school held the conference call using Skype system to talk to pupils from Johannes Grundschule in our Twin twin of Warstein, Germany.

The German school has become twinned with Hebden Royd C of E as part of an initiative to promote greater links with the area’s twin towns of St Pol and Warstein – a campaign championed by myself as part  of my Mayoral year.

The school has been absolutely fabulous and we really shared the same vision for our youngsters. Head teacher Gretl Young said: “This link gives us such scope with what we can do with the children. We’ve got a year with this group before they go off to high school and hopefully they will make plenty of friends and connections.”

Miss Young said staff at the school were excited to be the first in Hebden Royd to form a link with a school in Warstein or St Pol and said they were going to take part in a project looking at the London Olympics with Johannesgrundschule, as well as having regular email contact and Skype calls.

Hopefully this is the first of many schools in our area forming links and this will have fantastic future benefits for the children and they may well end up having an international future.

Also present  were David Parry, president of the Hebden Bridge and District International Group, and Jo Eggleton, Calderdale Council’s Town Twinning Officer.

The event was well publicised in German press and we has great fun with the children making this initial link

Warstein Newspaper Article

Skype meeting in full flow at Hebden Royd

Warstein Newspaper article

Hebden Royd children during the Skype Meeting

In summary this was definitely one of the highlights of our year and I hope the children forge long and fruitful links overseas

Scott and Amy Trickett

Mayor of Hebden Royd Town Council