What is the initiative about?
"The Federal Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier started up the “Schools: Partners for the Future” initiative. Its objective is establishing a worldwide network of at least 1000 partner schools, and as a result awakening young people’s interest and enthusiasm for modern Germany and its society. ‘It is an initiative launched by the Foreign Office in February 2008 which aims to support schools worldwide, who will participate as centres of competence for the German language."(Goethe Institut website)

The unique feature of this project is the pupils of every partner school can make contacts and friendships with pupils in other partner schools through online projects in the German which allows them to engage in intercultural exchange.

Since the beginning of the initiative in 2008 only three British schools have been selected to take part in the initial three year project. St. Marylebone School is one of the British schools who are key partners of this initiative.

We are currently in the third year of the partnership with the Goethe Institut and so far many of our pupils have already benefitted immensely from this initiative.

In the beginning there was...
To mark the launch of the initiative as the first English partner school of the project “Schools – Partners for the Future” St Marylebone hosted a concert by the German-Australian electro band Dyko.

The German Ambassador, Georg Boomgaarden, officially launched the initiative by underlining the intercultural significance of the project. He particularly underlined that the “Learning languages enables us to get to know other cultures”


In the presence of the German Ambassador and various representatives of the partner organisations, St Marylebone pupils enjoyed an afternoon attending various workshops creating their own German pop songs.