Nottingham visits the Ningbo International Fashion Festival

Nicola Francis (NTU), Zhu Zu Long (Romon, China) and John Connelly (NCC) at the Ningbo International Fashion Festival, October 07

Ningbo, as the largest garment manufacturing hub in China, has hosted the Ningbo International Fashion Festival since 1997. It is the largest festival held by Ningbo, and was recognised by the International Festival Association as one of the top ten "Internationally Influential Festivals" in China.

John Connelly, Nottingham City Council’s International Manager, and Nicola Francis, Programme Leader from Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art and Design, visited Ningbo International Fashion Festival in October 2007 (22nd Oct ~ 24th Oct.). With Nottingham’s strong design capabilities, they were there to explore opportunities of collaboration with local garment manufacturers.

Although Ningbo boasts massive garment manufacturing capacity, its companies are very keen to bring international design concepts into their businesses. Big players such as Youngor and Shanshan, are especially looking for design support worldwide.

Student Internships During their stay in Ningbo, Mr. Connelly and Ms. Francis visited Ningbo Youngor Group and Shanshan Group. Both companies expressed great interests in developing NTU student internships and in sending staff for training courses specifically developed for Chinese designers by NTU.

A market for Nottingham designers! Mr. Connelly also visited the Ningbo Garment Association, which is a membership organisation with 500 – 600 member companies, including all the local major players. Being aware of a lack of designers, Ningbo Garment Association is actively looking for top international designers, and is very keen to work with Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham colleges and Nottingham design companies in designer training, and in organising a Nottingham fashion show at next year’s fashion festival.

The visit indicates that there is a big market for the Nottingham design industry in China. The findings and the responses from local garment manufacturers are very positive and encouraging. As these projects are developed further, they will continue to be supported and facilitated by our NBDL office in China.

Nottingham Schools visit China to set up new links

Nottingham teachers with Chinese teachers in Ningbo, October 07

Nottingham Children’s Services officers and school teachers just returned from their one-week visit in Ningbo, China. The visit, supported by the Nottingham Business Development Ltd (NBDL) Office, Nottingham City Council’s Representative office in China, and funded by the British Council, proved timely and fruitful.

Nottingham–Ningbo school links started almost one year ago, when six Nottingham schools were invited by Nottingham City Council to express an interest in developing links with China. The schools are: Nottingham Welbeck Primary School, Nottingham Bluecoat School, Djanogly City Academy, Nottingham Our Lady and St Edward Catholic Primary School, Nottingham Fernwood Infant School, and Nottingham Emmanuel School. The schools exchanged their profiles and were matched with partner schools in Ningbo.

Having prepared for months, the Nottingham School Education Group arrived at Ningbo on 14th October. A group meeting, attended by local education officials and teachers from both Nottingham and Ningbo, was held the next day. The teachers, who had kept in touch by email for months, finally had the chance to talk to each other face to face. It was a valuable meeting – the teachers exchanged their expectations from the school linking project, discussed practical activities, especially potential future joint curriculum activities, and consequently, gained better understanding of each other.

In country support was also provided by British Council Shanghai. Being aware of different cultural perceptions about school links, British Council officers organised a session for the group and their Chinese colleagues. This was extremely beneficial for the partnership and proved a turning point in the visit for some of the teachers experiencing a few difficulties in terms of agreeing on purpose and activities for the link.

In addition to these meetings, and most importantly, the teachers spent the majority of their time in their partner schools. They talked to pupils, observed arts, language, and science lessons, taught English, attended class meetings and a school sports day. They brought back letters from the Chinese children to Nottingham pupils, Chinese school uniforms, Chinese children’s art works, class DVDs produced by Chinese children about a typical school day, or a school event…The school visits were the highlight for the teachers!

The visit resulted in an action plan for the development of joint curriculum activities between Nottingham and Ningbo schools in the future, and Nottingham Children’s Services are now very much looking forward the successful implementation of the project.

Coming up!

Nottingham/Ningbo FE links Nottingham FE Colleges will visit Ningbo in December to put the wheels in motion for exciting new projects with Ningbo further education establishments - new joint learning programmes / student and staff exchanges / teacher training programmes and opportunities for work placements will be explored.

Ningbo Week! Plans will be put in place for a "Ningbo Week" over here in Nottingham during the early part of 2008, bringing over Ningbo businesses, educationalists, politicians and cultural performances!