The Department for International Development is undertaking a review of its development awareness work. Consequently, no new GSP awards will be made until further notice. Please check here for further updates.
0. What is a reciprocal visit grant?
Reciprocal visit grants are for young partnerships that have usually been working together for approximately six months. The partnership is in the process of laying the foundations for long term collaborative work that will embed a global dimension in the schools' curricula.
Before applying for funding and other support, you must register your partnership with Global School Partnerships.
1. How is it used?
Reciprocal visit grants enable staff from each partner school to visit their partner school for a minimum of five working days whilst the host school is in session. The visits allow time for staff to meet face to face to plan joint curricular activities with a global dimension theme.
The grant must be split between the partner schools to enable one visit to each school during the funding period.
At least one teacher from each school must visit and and an equal number of teachers must travel in each direction.
2. Who can apply?
Successful applicants have usually been involved in a partnership for about six months and will have already done some joint preparation. Please check our list of eligible countries.
Partnerships between pre-schools, primary schools, middle schools, secondary schools, special schools and sixth form colleges can all apply.
International schools in southern countries are not eligible. Further and higher education institutions are not eligible.
3. When should we apply and what are the travel dates?
The next application deadline is 1 May 2011. This is for travel between 30 May 2011 and 31 August 2012. Unfortunately applications for retrospective funding cannot be accepted.
If your school partnership is considering applying for a Reciprocal Visit grant, our Grant Preparation seminars will help you prepare your application.
4. Can we apply as a group of schools?
Schools can apply on a school-to-school basis or as part of a larger cluster of schools. Cluster-to-cluster partnerships should have equal numbers of schools in each country. There is no limit on the size of a cluster, but there is a limit to the amount of money a cluster partnership can apply for.
5. How much money can we apply for?
School-to-school partnerships can apply for up to £2,100.
If two schools in each country are working together (four schools in total) the maximum you can apply for is £4,200.
If three schools in each country working together (six schools in total) the maximum you can apply for is £6,300.
If more than six schools are working together the maximum you can apply for is still £6,300.
6. How do we apply?
Application details will be available shortly.
Partner schools should work together to complete the application.
You will need to submit an email, letter or fax from the head teacher(s) of the southern partner schools supporting your application as well as signature(s) from the head teacher(s) of the UK school(s). It can take some time to complete the application and to gather all the relevant documents, so please make sure you allow plenty of time.
Before planning the visits we strongly advise all teachers to visit the UK government's Foreign and Commonwealth Travel Advice website for up-to-date travel information and to read the travel safe guide published jointly by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Lonely Planet.
7. Can we get help with our grant application?
Yes. There are several ways to get help with your application:
1. Attend a grant application seminar
2. Attend a twilight workshop
3. Join the Online Application Seminars
Each one is designed to help with your application but please read carefully the benefits of attending each one to see which best suits your requirements.
You can also contact your Regional GSP Co-ordinator or your Regional Global Educator.
8. We’ve submitted our application, what happens next?
If your application is complete, then you will receive an acknowledgement letter from the team and your application will be put forward for assessment. We will always send letters to the UK co-ordinating school so if you are working in a cluster, make sure you know who this is.
9. How and when will the grant be paid?
Once we have received the signed contract we can process the payment. All payments will be paid into the bank account of the UK co-ordinating school. It is their responsibility to ensure that the money is distributed according to the grant guidelines and to keep financial records. It can take up to three months after the application deadline for the money to reach by the UK co-ordinating school's bank account so please keep this in mind when planning visits.
10. When do we need to complete the reciprocal visit final report?
Please bear in mind that the final report must be completed by all partner schools so it's recommended that you start working on it during the second visit so that all schools can contribute fully.
