Press Coverage

At the touch of a button, First Year pupils from Milne's High School, Fochabers, will be able to communicate with their counterparts in Dunedin, New Zealand, via the Internet.

Using the Internet facilities of e-mail and world wide web, the children will be able to learn about each other's history, culture, geography and lifestyles.

In all 12 schools from across Britain have been linked with schools in New Zealand in a project being funded by the British Council, which will run until the middle of June.

The pupils taking part are all aged about 13 years, and they will try to find historical links, as well as working on contemporary themes of a local and national interest.

Two First Year classes from Milne's High are involved in the InterLink project with children from Queen's High School, Dunedin, which went online on Monday. Not only will pupils be able to get to grips with new technology, it will also help their communication skills and knowledge of geography and modern studies. English teacher Mrs Grace Humphrey explained.

"Projects will relate to various areas of the curriculum" she said. "The pupils will have direct links with the school in Dunedin but we will have access to other exchanges between schools as we can visit their pages and see what they have been doing."

Rector Mr Lindsay Matheson is particularly interested in the project, as he was brought up in Dunedin after his family emigrated from Scotland when he was just five years old. The city was founded by Scottish settlers and is named after the former name of Edinburgh, so Milne's High pupils should find a strong Scottish connection.

"By communicating with their paired school, the children will be able to find out about each other's culture, landscape, environment, geography and history," he stated.

The English department, the school librarian, a Sixth Year pupil Kevin Hay, Moray College and Forres Academy have all helped set up the links.

Here are some of the class on launch day. We took this picture with a digital camera.

Milne's High School
Weekly News

Surfing - InterLink New Zealand is underway. Already messages have been exchanged on the topic "What Are They Like". This involved Queen's High, Dunedin, and Milne's High School writing about their impressions of each other without using reference books. It would appear that their thoughts on us Scots are based on the film "Braveheart", but Milne's High ideas on New Zealanders were weird and wonderful.

Replies pointing out that we Scots are not kilt-wearing sheep farmers have been sent. Everyone was delighted to discover that Milne's was the first school to have completed this project.