What can we learn from other countries' teaching methods, education system and classroom experiences? Alongside sharing some interesting ideas, these programmes teach much about different cultures and ways of living.

Comparative International Education

Racial barriers for Chicago's school leaders are addressed

Discover the barriers that many black and Hispanic candidates face when applying for headteacher and school-leader roles in Chicago, and see the strategies that are being implemented to help them. Although nearly 90 per cent of Chicago's public school students are of the same ethnicity, aspiring black and Hispanic school leaders still face many obstacles to career progression. Schools are now using four key strategies to overcome these barriers. They include offering subsidised leadership-training programmes targeted at under-represented groups; developing a new model of leadership; recruiting beyond traditional routes; and raising the number of college-educated black and Hispanic leaders of the future. Hear the views of Tim Knowles, of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, who believes students will reap the benefits of having these strong leaders in the schools of Chicago for years to come.

Black School Leadership - How Do They Do It In Chicago?

See how history teaching varies within a post-conflict country

This video reveals the importance of history in shaping national identity, by looking at how history is taught in Bosnia. Memories of conflict are still very fresh in Bosnia, where children grow up learning a very one-sided account of their history. In towns of multiple ethnic groups, schools are divided. In the same building, Croat children are taught in separate classrooms from Muslim children. Schools teach history from different national curriculums, providing differing views of the past. And although Bosnia is currently peaceful, this situation could drive a wedge between ethnic groups by reinforcing differences. The video also raises the question of how much of our own country's past we simply accept.

Bosnia - Teaching History

Find out how Chinese schools instil healthy living into learners

A fascinating and visually spectacular programme providing unique insights into how Chinese schools, and the country at large, value physical education. We also see the extraordinary lengths that schools go to in order to engender a lifelong habit of exercise. From the school run - done entirely on foot or bicycle - through to lunch with freshly-prepared ingredients, to a whole two hours of exercise every single day, the Chinese put a premium on exercise and healthy living. This programme shows the PE drills that every Chinese child undertakes throughout their school career, and it considers whether habits which to us seem harsh, such as rarely using central heating in schools, do in fact produce a healthy population. The programme considers the role of ancient martial arts in the country's physical education heritage. And it features the acupuncture-influenced eye exercises performed twice a day by millions of schoolchildren, which the Chinese claim improves eyesight.

China - Sport and PE

Explore the importance of performing and visual arts in Cuba

This video explores how performing arts, visual arts and cultural learning are taught in three Cuban schools: a primary, a secondary and a school for young art instructors. The importance of teaching performing and visual arts is a legacy of the 1959 Cuban revolution. Today, the Cuban government continually looks for new and better ways to deliver arts education. Learn about the sophisticated support that televised classes on Cuba's educational channel provide. Young art instructors are trained from the age of 14 to teach music, dance, drama and the visual arts in primary and secondary schools across the country. Cubans believe that school should be the cultural centre of the community. It should be a place where young people can learn about their cultural heritage, and develop the skills to express themselves creatively.

Cuba - Performing Arts

Learn how French schools uniformly teach handwriting

An educational philosophy encompassing all creative subjects backs up the teaching of handwriting in France. The French believe that giving children the ability to write will free their minds to perform creatively throughout their lives. So they teach handwriting as a subject in its own right. And they teach handwriting in a uniform way throughout primary schools, using traditional calligraphy to produce a distinctive, ornate hand. This programme visits a school in Lyon to see how students in Year 1 and Year 6 develop this ability.

France - Teaching Handwriting

How German companies are working with kindergartens to develop engineers

To inspire young people who may have lost interest in science and technology, engineering companies in Germany are producing teaching resources, and training kindergarten teachers to help encourage skills and interest in the subjects from Early Years upwards. Working with science education organisation, Science Lab, in Munich, companies provide 'Discovery Boxes', which contain simple scientific experiments, to kindergartens to interest children in engineering from an early age, and help fund training courses to boost teachers' confidence in teaching these subjects. These boxes include resources for teaching about water, colour, air, sound and electricity, and are designed to stimulate pupils' enthusiasm for science-based subjects, to prevent a future shortage of engineers in Germany.

Germany - Early Years Engineering

Explore three pupils' vocational learning, for KS4 providers

This comparative CPD video for vocational 14-19 providers shows Germany's approach to vocational training, following three young people at various stages in their education in Bremen. Germany has a reputation for providing some of the best vocational training in Europe. Learn more with this whole-school video on secondary and further education. Geraldine is studying law at the University of Bremen; having taken an academic route through school, she's continuing in this vein at university. Georg is training to be a car mechanic. Under the dual system in Germany, he spends three days each week working in a garage and two days studying at college. Melissa is studying in the Hauptschule, the most vocational of the secondary school models within Germany's three-tier system. The system is not without its problems. With increasing calls for comprehensives, it remains to be seen whether Germany's vocational system will continue.

Germany - Vocational Education

Does a direct approach to sex education reduce pregnancy rates?

Teenagers in Holland practise safe sex and less than one per cent of them get pregnant every year compared to six per cent in England. Can the Dutch approach to sex education take the credit? Much of the country's success can be attributed to the Dutch culture of tolerance and pragmatism which allows children to talk openly about sexuality with their parents at home. But because Holland's sex education teachers aren't bound by a national curriculum, they also help to keep the teenage pregnancy rate down by teaching children about sex in very different ways. In Amsterdam's Lyceum, biology teacher Ruud Winkel discusses sexuality by getting his students to question each other from specially prepared cards. As with many teachers in Holland, Ruud's approach is direct and informal. But according to Yuri Ohlrichs at the Dutch Sexuality Centre, not all in children in this multicultural society have experienced communicating so explicitly.

Holland - Sex Education

Learn about Long Live Love, the Dutch sex education programme

Find out about Long Live Love - Holland's most widely-taught sex education programme for 12-to-15-year-olds. Subsidised by the Dutch Government, Long Live Love was developed in the early 90s in response to the threat of HIV and Aids. The package includes a video featuring teenagers with very different views on sex, as well as a magazine and a teachers' pack. Sex education teacher Claire Barr travels to the Winkler Prins school in the north of Holland to meet a group of students and their teacher, Inge Lammers, as they prepare to embark on their first lesson. The students start in the school library where, from a staggering selection of more than 30 books on sex education, they learn how to find reliable sources of information. At the whiteboard, students are invited to write up slang words for vagina, penis and sex, before selecting the most appropriate.

Holland - Sex Education 2

Insights into Hungary's success with teaching primary maths

Hungary's successful approach to teaching primary maths has pupils absorbing concepts early on, manipulating objects, using visual models and learning mental maths techniques. They begin written maths later than in the UK. The Hungarian pedagogical methods have informed much of the English thinking in this area, and Hungarian pupils feature highly in the international rankings. The teachers introduce written methods when pupils have a solid grasp of the mathematical processes they represent, meaning pupils start writing 'sums' about a year later than their UK counterparts. There are no national tests or league tables in Hungary. Their approach appears to be formal and traditional, but their lessons are lively, logically structured and all the pupils are involved. During their training, Hungarian teachers receive a thorough grounding in the maths they need to know and the methods they should use to teach maths effectively.

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