Strategic Recovery Statement (COVID-19)

The Scottish European Educational Trust (SEET), established in 1993, is a non-political charity committed to promoting international education, skills development, and language learning amongst children and young people in Scotland. Our main activities include an annual Euroquiz for primary school pupils, and Our World, a language and citizenship-based filmmaking project for secondary school pupils.

SEET is passionate about supporting and enabling future generations of young people in Scotland to gain the skills necessary to engage and flourish in a multinational, multi-lingual environment. Our projects offer a context for language learning and cultural development, while encouraging the development of a range of core skills essential to enhancing future employability prospects. These skills will be more vital than ever, both economically and socially, as we emerge from COVID-19.

Despite the challenges we are all facing, SEET is strongly committed to making a difference and we will continue to create opportunities for learners across Scotland to build the skills, knowledge and confidence to look outward and engage with other cultures. Moving forward, we recognise that it will be essential to adapt in order to provide safe and accessible educational experiences for our young people. To this end, we are currently developing ways to offer the full complement of SEET projects in an online format. During lockdown we developed a new project SEET@Home, an adapted filmmaking project for primary and secondary pupils and teachers working from home. We also developed a new website, helping to improve communication and accessibility with SEET and its projects. These experiences have given us new skills and shown us the potential that online working offers us as we move forward and support the evolving learning arrangements in schools and at home.

We are aware of the significant challenges our school communities are facing but feel strongly that the importance of language learning and international education should not be diminished. We will continue to work closely with schools and local authorities to ensure that the positive impact of SEET’s projects on the development of Scotland’s young people is as strong as ever.

We are grateful for continued funding, including Scottish Government support, towards our projects in 2020–21. We are adapting to the current climate and the needs of Scottish education, whilst developing new and creative approaches that will enable us to deliver high quality educational opportunities in a fun and accessible way. We have exciting developments for both Euroquiz and Our World projects in the pipeline, and we look forward to working with all of our partners as we plan for the future and continue SEET’s essential work with learners across Scotland.