"At the start of this project, I was Deputy Head at Grendon Underwood School, with responsibility for a Year 6 class. I am now the Headteacher, and responsible for the completion of this project to the DfEE's satisfaction.

My class of 27 mixed ability pupils aged 10 -11 had access to only 1 computer in my classroom to enable them to undergo this project. They have a good level of ICT skills, and have been following an in house scheme of work for ICT for the past three years.

The Grendon Underwood Combined School, is a rural school with pupils from all social backgrounds. The ICT facilities have just been improved as a result of NGfL funding, and we now have a 15 station networked room, with all machines having access to the Internet. We are now following the QCA scheme of work for ICT.

In this project, there was to be a strong emphasis on further development of a local partnership in the following ways:

• The children from both schools would spend time working in their own, and each other's, locality. The children would work closely with their local records offices, in order to build up a picture of the localities, and how they had developed.
• We were sure that opportunities would arise and the children to talk to local members of the community, as part of the research process.
• Links that already existed, in both schools cases, with local churches, would be expanded. We would invite the vicars of both churches to be involved in the projects, which would hopefully give them the opportunity to establish new links between themselves.
• During the project, the children from each school would have the opportunity to work in their partnership school, in order to experience being taught by different members of staff, and to work in a school which was different, in some ways, to their own.
• Opportunities would arise for the staff of both schools to look closely at the schemes of work that they had already written. We felt that there would also be opportunities to share good practice, look at standards achieved by the children in each of the schools, and used the project to plan work units for the future, which both schools would be able to draw upon.

It was also envisaged that there would be much potential for future links to develop. Links would be developed initially in the curriculum areas of RE, geography and history. Pupils could then use the schemes of work that would be developed, along with the resources collected for them, in future years. The pupils and staff could, then evaluate the work that was to be produced each year, closely. It was also felt that through the use of ICT, pupils could continue to liaise, research information and so on. Staff would also have opportunities to use ICT as an aid to planning work, and evaluate the work that was subsequently produced. It was clear to us that both schools had a very strong interest in the arts, and envisaged in the long-term, to liaise on a musical or theatrical project, using the research that we intended to do, as a basis of all the work. Performances could then take place for the other children in the schools, parents, and just as importantly, the local communities as a whole. We were convinced that both schools could certainly learn from one another in a variety of ways and forms.

These could include;

• Lesson observations by the teachers
• e-mail links for the literacy hour (e.g. story or poetry writing)
• sporting links curriculum planning/exchanging schemes of work/policies/initiatives "