On Thursday 23rd February 2023, pupils and staff at Sycamore Academy and Yinzhou District Zhonghe Experimental Primary School (宁波市鄞州区中河实验小学) attended a grand virtual signing ceremony to formalise their friendship agreement, as part of the Sister School Partnerships programme.
During the ceremony, the two schools introduced their core values, teaching philosophy and ambitions for the exciting partnership.
Mr Paul Worley, Headteacher at Sycamore Primary School said:
“As Headteacher, on behalf of Sycamore Academy, I would like to formally greet our new partner school in Ningbo. We are an above-average-sized primary school where children start their learning journey with us at 2 years of age until they are 11 years old. Our school is split into four phases numbered from 1 through to 4 containing two year groups each with 2 classes.
When our pupils leave us they move on to their secondary schools with the skills, knowledge and attributes that they have acquired during their time here with us at Sycamore Academy.
Our school has a strong focus on well-being as well as learning. We believe that knowledge is the key to success. Knowledge can only be acquired when pupils feel that they are in a safe place to learn. A place where it’s ok to make mistakes because when we get things wrong we then have our best learning. Our academy’s motto is “Learning and Caring together”.
We have also five Sycamore core-values (one for each lobe of the Sycamore leaf). These are Pride, Discovery, Teamwork, Respect and Resilience, you will see these values in everything that we do. Our values define us and make us all the Sycamore Team.
We are also part of LEAD Academy Trust whose values are; Lead, Empower, Achieve and Drive. Therefore, our Sycamore values combined with our LEAD values make 9 values which equip all of our children to be as successful as possible.
I’m sure both of our schools will enjoy and benefit from this partnership which we will build together. We are confident this will go from strength to strength over the weeks, months and years ahead. We look forward to this journey with excitement.”
Nottingham has a long-standing relationship with Ningbo in China so this partnership with further strengthen the twinned links.
