King’s Ely welcomed over 40 students and teachers from Spain, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden and Poland to the school this week as part of an online learning project.

The visit was part of the Erasmus Plus programme – the European Union’s programme for education, training, youth and sport.

Out of 256 projects, just 18 were approved for funding by the EU and King’s Ely was selected as the only school in Britain to take part by the lead partner school, Liceo Galilei, Pescara, Italy.

Erasmus Plus is a three-year EU funded project to develop common digital resources, which can be shared by schools across Europe in a massive online open course (MOOC). This was the third of seven meetings taking place over three years.

Sue Freestone, principal of King’s Ely, welcomed the partners to the school before students took part in online evaluation courses from programming to architecture.

“Throughout the week the group visited Ely Cathedral, climbing the famous Octagon Tower, participated in geography-based treasure hunts around Ely and visited London and Cambridge.

“The students offered a critical presentation on what they thought of the online lessons, giving very helpful feedback to allow staff to move forward with future lessons, as well as investigating how we can use multimedia more effectively in lessons, before preparing a brochure explaining the Erasmus MOOC.”

Marc Hawes, head of ICT and computing, who is heading up the UK partnership, said: “A lot of new friendships have been made amongst the cultural experiences and academic work.

“Our own students are looking forward to our meetings in Poland, Finland and Spain next year.”

Sue Freestone added: “It is a huge privilege to be part of this scheme, to be representing the UK and contributing to something that could have such a far-reaching impact on learners world-wide.”