The British Council works with a wide range of schools across Bangladesh in both the public and private sectors through projects, events, courses, workshops and digital resources and platforms. 

From policy-level engagement to headteachers’ leadership skills development, teachers’ continuing professional development, school competitions, school to school partnerships; the British Council brings the best of UK expertise and innovation in school education and facilitates mutually beneficial relationships between school systems and professionals in Bangladesh and the UK. 

What is Connecting Classrooms?

Connecting Classrooms is a global education programme for schools which aims to help young people worldwide develop the knowledge, skills and value they need for life and work in the global economy. It is delivered by the British Council in partnership with UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. In Bangladesh, this programme has been running since 2009 with support from the Ministry of Education.

The programme has been working in three strands as below:

  • Policy engagement
  • Professional Development for teachers and school leaders
  • International collaboration

We have successfully completed three phases of the programme and now implementing the fourth phase of it. Through Connecting Classrooms since 2009, we have reached over 9,000 teachers, over 7,000 head teachers, over 2,880,000 students and arranged more than 12 policy events which involved more than 650 policymakers till now. We have more than 200 ongoing international partnerships between Bangladeshi and overseas schools including the UK.

Professional development for teachers

Research by top education experts and academics indicates that in order to participate in a global economy, young people need to have deep learning skills, also known as 21st-century skills. This means we need to equip teachers with the right tools to enable this to happen. The main focus of the Connecting Classrooms professional development programme for teachers and headteachers is on six skills identified as a core for success in the 21st century.  The six skills are :

  •   Critical thinking and problem-solving 
  •   Creativity and imagination
  •   Digital literacy
  •   Citizenship
  •   Student leadership
  •   Collaboration and communication.

We offer face to face workshops on these six courses, tailored specifically for teachers and leaders in Bangladesh. 

To learn more, please visit https://connecting-classrooms.britishcouncil.org/ 

Professional development for leaders

The Connecting Classrooms Leadership programme for head teachers and senior educators focuses on developing essential leadership skills, while, uniquely, applying these skills to the context of embedding an international dimension in the curriculum and ethos of a school. Through training, exchanges and benchmarking, the programme encourages educators to fine-tune their professional skills and practices for the benefit for all.

To access the courses for Leaders, please visit https://connecting-classrooms.britishcouncil.org/. 

Professional partnerships

Connecting Classrooms offers professional partnerships scheme between UK schools and international schools across the globe to build equitable and sustainable partnerships. Professional partnerships can be formed in two ways; (1) One to one partnership, (2) Cluster groups. One to one partnership is formed between one school in the UK and one school-based outside of the UK. Cluster groups are formed between a group of schools in the UK and overseas working together where one UK school must be the lead school to coordinate all cluster activities. One unique feature of professional partnerships is the funding opportunity for reciprocal visits between the UK schools and overseas schools. During the visits, schools spend several days at their overseas partner schools comparing global learning practices and share their learning. UK schools and overseas schools work together on collaborative projects to better equip their students to think about and tackle global issues while making a positive impact on the skills and pedagogy of respective teachers.

Share this