Jersey education minister visits Guernsey schools

Deputy Rob Ward toured Le Rondin School and Les Beaucamps High School during a visit to Guernsey in a bid to promote collaborative working between the islands.

He said that it had been a constructive two-day visit to identify and discuss topics where there are shared ambitions within both education systems.

‘We’re looking for areas of good practice that we can share, some initiatives that we may want to take on, that we can learn from and vice versa,’ he said.

‘To see an education system on another small island and the commonalities between the two is a really interesting thing to do.

‘There’s already interaction between our departments, such as in early years, but we can build on that and re-establish the relationship between two jurisdictions.’

Guernsey’s Education, Sport & Culture president Andrea Dudley-Owen was showing Deputy Ward around during his trip.

She said that there were a lot of shared opportunities between two islands facing similar challenges, and believed that Guernsey too could take inspiration from Jersey schools.

‘I’ve recognised that there are some really innovative and creative ways that Jersey is finding solutions to problems they have in schools, such as providing hot school meals in primary schools which do not have the infrastructure readily available, and how they’ve managed to do that successfully,’ she said.

‘It creates food for thought about how we might be able to do the same one day.

‘There’s broader things about infrastructure, curriculum, assessments and making sure our young people are work-ready.

‘There’s so many areas that we share those opportunities, it would be a huge waste if we didn’t seek to work together.'

Both politicians made reference to the Channel Islands coming as one on the global stage, rather than Guernsey and Jersey individually.

They said that learning from each other could only be a good thing.

‘It makes complete sense for the two islands to work together where it can to make things more effective.

‘It’s not just about saving money but anything else and it’s really important to communicate more,’ said Deputy Ward.

‘Particularly in education, there are similarities between small islands, such as what and how we deliver a breadth of education with limited numbers of students in school and we can do that together.’

Deputy Dudley-Owen said that the students from Les Beaucamps had been welcoming and engaged and did a good job showing off local education to a Jersey representative.