LISS Junior School is celebrating after gaining the British Council’s International School’s Award.

The full accreditation lasts for three years and was awarded in recognition of the school’s work on embedding global themes into the curriculum during the last academic year.

The successful bid comes on the back of six years’ work in developing the relationship between Liss Junior School and its twinned school, Kafuro Primary School, in Uganda.

Both of the schools are members of the Queen Elizabeth Parks Twinning Project, which links schools near to Queen Elizabeth Country Park in Hampshire and Queen Elizabeth National Park in south west Uganda.

After an initial exchange visit, the relationship between the two schools has gone from strength to strength with a shared internet blog and co-operation over areas of curricular study, in particular conservation and sustainable living.

Liss Junior School decided to make a formal application for the International School’s Award in the summer of 2014, and assistant headteacher Adam Stanley drew up a list of activities for the children to experience during the academic year.

This included Ugandan-themed assemblies, storytelling, developing the school grounds along sustainable lines, sharing experiences in beekeeping, and keeping and comparing water diaries.

“Getting the children to keep water diaries was one of the most powerful things we have done,” said Mr Stanley.

“We asked the children to keep the diaries for a week and write down all of the water they used. At the same time the children at Kafuro were doing the same thing.

“When the results were collated, we discovered that children in Liss use 20 times more water on average per day than their peers in Uganda. When I revealed the results to the children in an assembly, they were shocked.

“You could have heard a pin drop as the assembly hall fell silent. It really made the children question their lifestyles and how they use a finite natural resource.”

Liss Junior School headteacher Andy Burford said: “To be awarded full International School accreditation is a fantastic achievement, one which recognises the school’s commitment to a truly dynamic and meaningful partnership with Kafuro Primary in Uganda. The award is further acknowledgement of the impact our partnership work has had on the lives and the learning in both Liss and Kafuro’s school communities.”