Each partnership can apply for a grant of £1,500 per school. The total monies awarded will vary in accordance with the number of schools involved in the partnership, e.g. £3,000 for a 1-1 bi-lateral partnership; £4,500 for a 1-1-1 trilateral partnership (Sub Saharan Africa only); £9,000 for a 3-3 bi-lateral cluster; £13,500 for a 3-3-3 tri-lateral cluster.

The next application deadline is 28 June 2013. The two deadlines after this are 25 October 2013 and 31 January 2014.

No - if you cannot submit your application by the deadline we would advise that you apply at a later date.

There are three deadlines each year so plenty of opportunities to apply for funding.

We still actively encourage partnerships between UK and other eligible non-priority countries and would urge you to apply.

Unfortunately, if your school is partnered with an ineligible country then you are unable to apply for a grant. However, the list of countries participating in Connecting Classrooms can vary from round-to-round so we would advise you to check the eligibility list whenever a future round is announced so that you can see if your partnership has become eligible.

There is only one type grant on offer and it is for schools actively working together no matter what stage the partnership is at. We expect partnered schools applying for a subsequent grant to demonstrate progression over time. Please see the School Partnerships Guide for further information.

There is no online application process at the moment although this is in development. In the meantime, the application form should be downloaded in Word format and then submitted to schools@britishcouncil.org.

The Reciprocal Visit Grant was offered by the Global School Partnerships programme which closed in March 2012. Funding to visit your partner school and can now be accessed via Connecting Classrooms instead.

The grants team aim to inform schools with the assessment panel’s decision within six weeks of the application deadline.

Contracts will be created by the grants team and issued to the lead UK coordinator within eight weeks of the application deadline. You should then sign and return the contract to the grants team by post as soon as possible. Your funding will then be issued within thirty days of the team’s receipt of the completed documents.

Extensions will not be offered under any circumstances so you need to ensure travel takes place before your reporting deadline. If the narrative and financial reports are not submitted by the stated deadline then the British Council reserves the right to request for the grant to be repaid in full.

British Council Schools Online features a number of global learning resources and provides a series of engaging introductory activities that are perfect for you and your partner to work on together. The introductory activities can be downloaded from the website and will help you and your international counterpart to get to know each other. The template projects found at are designed as preliminary projects and are intended to function as a platform for you and your partner to devise more in depth activities. For further inspiration we would also like to draw your attention to the Professional Development strand of Connecting Classrooms. A suite of free online courses that can be used in class or as a shared activity to help you develop your own projects is available on the website.