Host teachers arrived in Homburg - Germany on Sunday, 03/10/2021 and departured on Thursday, 07/10/2021, according to each school's travel arrangements.
From Monday to Wednesday, participating teachers met according to the following Teacher Workshop Programme:
Teachers training & Coordination week_270921.pdf
Sunday, 03/10/21
Sunday, 03/10/21, was arrival day of the participating teachers of the project. After arrival in Homburg, the group met for the welcome dinner in restaurant "Ohlio" located in the historic market square in Homburg. During the dinner, all of the participants from the four partner schools got to know each other.
Monday, 04/10/21
The first day of the teacher's training event started with a welcoming in the office of the headmaster of the hosting school, Hans-Jörg Opp, who joined the project group in a lot of activities during the whole mobility time.
The workshop participants introduced themselves and exchanged presents they brought along from their countries. Hereafter, Mr Opp provided a walking tour through the school buildings of BBZ Homburg. He introduced the participants to the different sections and departments of the school, such as workshops, kitchens and machines, buildings, specialist rooms, offices and teacher's rooms.
Workshop "How to improve mental health in the classroom?" (PUGIS e. V.)
After the introduction of the participating teachers to the school facilities, the project group arrived in the workshop room ("Talent Company"), in order to participate in the workshop "How to improve mental heath in classroom", offered by Dirk Mathis, head of PUGIS e. V., an organisation which focuses on prevention and health of people living in Saarland state.
First of all, Mr Mathis presented the workshop contents theoretically to the participants. He referred to some statistics and key facts saying that a quite big amount of children and young people in Germany are suffering from physical and psychologic diseases caused by a shortage of body movement and sports activities in their all day live as well as bad nutrition. During Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people being concerned has highly increased. Therefore, teachers can strenghthen the body movement of students and create opportunities to move during the lessons in short breaks.
Therefore, Mr Mathis showed the workshop participants practical activities that can be implemented easily to school lessons or within the framework of different occasions in school life. The introduced exercises were carried out by the participating teachers immediately. All of the activities focused on giving students opportunities to move and doing sports on a lower level, so that everyone can participate. Even students that are not sporty or athletic can take part and through moving, they are able to encourage both their bodies and brain avtivities.
Appointment with the District Administrator of Saar-Palatinate district, Mr Theophil Gallo (Landratsamt Homburg)
The District Administrator of Saar-Palatinate disctrict, Mr Theophil Gallo, invited our group to his office, in order to welcome the participants from the different countries to his district and to appreciate the transnational project work. Mr Gallo introduced the group to the history of the district and talked about various conditions of education and society within district. At the end, he handed a present to the participants and said goodbye to the project group.
Project planning workshop
After lunch, the project planning workshop of the teachers group took place in the project room at BBZ Homburg. Each school presented its plan for the four project weeks. BBZ Homburg will start with the theoretical background of mental health diseases among students. The goal will be to develop strategies of preventing mental health diseases and implementing them sustainably within the participating schools. Austrian project week focuses on dealing with mental health diseases via producing tools such as music instruments. The Greek participants reported that students will prepare a drama work during their mobility week. The Portuguese mobility week will develop strategies of mental health-prevention through playing games and doing sports.
Tuesday, 05/10/21
Excursion to "Biosphärenreservat Bliesgau", Tour "Wild herbs & medical plants"
The next item on the agenda was a training event. Therefore, in the morning of 05/10/21, the participating teachers started to biosphere reservation "Bliesgau" nearby Homburg. There, a walking tour was organised by representatives of the association "Biosphärenverband". The goal of the tour was to improve the knowledge of the participants about domestic plants that contribute to mental wellbeing. Thus, the subject of the discussion were wild herbs and medical plants.
The tour started with an introduction of the guide by explaining backgrounds of wild herbs and medical plants of the region, while serving a cup of tea from the surroundings of the location.
After that, the group walked a path within the biosphere reservation. Participants were instructed constantly by the guide about plants that are able to eat or use for health improvement, e. g. against urticaria. As a highlight, participants were asked to produce herbal butter by shaking cream with their own hands. The butter was offered afterwards with freshly-baked bread.
Lunch at vegan restaurant "World Food Trip", Blieskastel
Afterwards, the group changed the location and had lunch at a vegan restaurant in Blieskastel, a town close to Homburg, which provides vegan food as alternative to meat. The lunch referred to the morning activity and accentuated the prevention of mental health diseases through regional and healthy nutrition.
Presentation "Childhood and Youth psychology" (Mrs Prof. Dr. Möhler, University Hospital of Saarland, Homburg)
In the afternoon, the project continued with a workshop about childhood and youth psychology with Mrs Prof. Dr. Möhler who works as a psychatrist at University Hospital of Saarland in Homburg. The participants discussed with Prof. Möhler about examples of students having issues with mental health diseases. Mrs. Möhler introduced the group to her scientific work and her program "START", also a training program for teachers, to fight mental health diseases amongst students. After that, each member of the group described cases of everyday school life that are affected by those issues. The experiences in the four countries were shared as well as expertise about dealing strategies, in particular certain ways to deal with problems in terms of migration, trauma and special needs.
South Korean barbecue with Mr Opp
In the evening, the headmaster of BBZ Homburg, Hans-Jörg Opp, invited the participants to a South Korean barbecue "Bulgogi" that was prepared by himself at the school kitchen. Moreover, Mr Reiner Groß, representative from "Ministerium für Bildung und Kultur" was invited and joined the meeting, in order to discuss current developments within school systems of the different countries.
Wednesday, 06/10/21
Workshop „Inclusion and mental health of students“
The first activity on Wednesday was a discussion about inclusion within the participating schools as well as within the different school systems that are represented in the project. The discussion was moderated by Mrs Glauben from "Gemeinschaftsschule Neue Sandrennbahn" (Homburg) which is responsible for inclusion at her school which is a regular school. She provided approaches of how to create inclusive backgrounds and she and the other group members talked about successful cases of students with special needs at their schools. The participants talked about numerous terms of inclusion such as special needs education, migration, students with vulnerable backgrounds aso. and how inclusion is implemented in their school. Moreover, the group developed ideas how to improve inclusion processes.
Project planning workshop
In the afternoon, the students group met for discussing further project activities. In the beginning, Mr Markus Sieger, teacher from the mechatronics department of BBZ Homburg, showed a robot that has acquired by the school in order to teach technical skills in terms of artificial intelligence. Afterwards, the project group talked about organising the rest of the "Mental Health for European Youth! (HEY!)"-program:
- project work during the different students mobility weeks
- results of the mobility weeks
- evaluation
- dissemination
- collaboration work via Twinspace
An introduction in the Twinspace platform was provided by Ana Maria Dias from Portugal.
Saarland BBQ, certificates and farewell
The last evening focused on the summary of the teacher's training and coordination week of the project. While exchanging experiences and evaluating the mobility week, food was served in form of a regional barbecue. Meanwhile, Mr Opp gave the certificates to the group members who have joined the event. At the end, the participants said goodbye to each other. Everybody left on Thursday, 07/10/21, in the morning.