Netherton CE Primary School has been chosen as a Commonwealth school as part of the Commonwealth Connections Programme. We have been paired with a school in Sri Lanka. On Tuesday 8th February we were invited to the media launch at Thorns Academy. This saw the children meeting the other schools in the project, taking part in several team building and leadership activities and being interviewed by both the BBC and ITV news. The YST athletes Tom and Liz lead several activities with the children where they had to interact with pupils from various other schools. They conducted themselves with the utmost maturity, showing all of our school values through their conduct and personalities. One of the highlights of the day was meeting Perry the mascot and also being part of the live link up with our school in Sri Lanka. The next phase of the programme involves us planning and setting up our own festival to run alongside the Commonwealth games, creating an after school club to learn the national game of Sri Lanka; Volley ball and finally learning a dance with a professional dancer who will be spending 6 weeks in school working with the chosen children. This will then be performed at the same time as the school in Sri Lanka as a celebration of the two cultures. There is also an art project that will run concurrent with this. Children will create a large-scale anchor and chain [the anchor for the Titanic was produced in Netherton] to show Sri Lanka what the area around our school is well known for. The anchor will be made from reclaimed materials to show that the children are becoming more aware of sustainability and the role they have in climate change.