Commonwealth Connections | British Council

Commonwealth Connections is a joint project from the British Council and the Birmingham Organising Committee for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, twinning 60 schools in the West Midlands with counterparts from the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The British Council is delivering the project in partnership with the Birmingham Education Partnership (BEP) and the Youth Sport Trust (YST).

Using sport and art, the project seeks to create connections between young people on shared Commonwealth values. The project forms part of the Birmingham 2022 Organising Committee’s Youth and Education programme.

Participating schools from the West Midlands are represented across the following seven local authorities: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, Wolverhampton.

They are partnered with schools in ten Commonwealth Countries: Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and Zambia

Your school can get involved with the Commonwealth Games 2022 Schools Resource. The activities are designed for schools, with or without a partner, to celebrate the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the Commonwealth’s ongoing work to improve the lives of its citizens.

If your school wants to get connected with an international partner, explore our partner finding tool, with simple tips to find and get started on your own international journey with a partner school.

Find a partner

Working together with another schools in another Commonwealth country outside your own will enable shared learning and mutual enrichment.

You can use our Partner Finder tool free of charge to search for other schools on other countries of the Commonwealth that may be interested in collaborating. It's quick and easy to register as a user. You just need to provide your name and contact details for your school.

Check out our Prepare for finding a partner page for things to consider before finding a partner.

Establishing your partnership

You can find our tips for establising successful partnerships on the Once you have found a partner page.

We also have a collection of free, ready-to-go resources to help you get to know your partner and start working together.

Our Getting to know you challenge is designed to help partner schools introduce themselves and develop an understanding of the similarities and differences between their schools and localities. This is a great way to give structure to your early interactions.

We have a series of resources themed around the Global Goals for Sustainable Development which also relate to the Commonwealth values. These are particularly useful in the early stages of a partnership as they provide some quick activity ideas you can do together to help you get to know each other better.

You can also download our Commonwealth Games 2022 Schools Resource, designed to celebrate the ongoing work that the Commonwealth is doing to improve the lives of its citizens.

You can also dowload the Queen’s Baton Relay resource at the bottom of this page, giving you some ideas of the type of activities you may wish to do with your students to celebrate this global event.

Share your activity with us

We would like to hear from you about all the great work you are doing in your school with a partner or without it.

Tweet using the hashtag #CommonwealthConnections and we will publish and share the best pieces of work.