After arriving at the German school and being greeted warmly by pupils and staff, we were able to contribute to a staff meeting regarding progress and goals for our current project and sharing ideas for a future project. It was wonderful to catch up with our Erasmus+ colleagues and hear what each school has been working on, sharing evidence and planning next steps. Once the discussions were wrapped up for the day, we were able to join the pupils from many of our partner countries to see their progress on working collaboratively to make paper cranes and booklets out of stonepaper. It was wonderful to see all 1,100 cranes that the children in P5/6 at the Edinburgh Academy had made and sent across to Berlin, being incorporated into the group’s work in preparation for the market stall and presentation which would be held later in the week.

That evening, Ulla hosted a wonderful evening of tradition German food and drink for the visiting Erasmus+ teachers. This gave us another useful opportunity to share hopes, ideas and plans for a future project together.

The next day we met with all of our other Erasmus+ schools for a walking tour around Berlin. Having seen parts of the original Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag Building and Jewish Memorial it was impressive to see how much perseverance and strength could be found across East and West Berlin. The children and adults found it hard to imagine that such segregation had existed such a short time ago in our history. It was a very humbling experience.

We left Berlin full of hope and enthusiasm for the final months of our current project and look forward to working again with such lovely and dedicated staff.