COORDINATOR

PORTUGAL - Mem Martins

Agrupamento de Escolas Ferreira de Castro

www.efcastro.pt

The school is located in the suburban area of Mem Martins, Sintra. It includes 2289 pupils (aged 4-15). Many of the students' families have financial difficulties, due to unemployment. More than 9% of them have special needs and severe disabilities. Our school subsidizes basic needs of 40% of the sts. Inclusion of 169 foreign pupils is a compulsory. We have 204 teachers and 78 administrative staff. Some therapists work with students who have special needs. The social contexts in which the schools operate can be constituted as enhancers of risk factors for failure in the normal education system, verifying that in social and economically degraded territories, educational success is often lower, and violence, indiscipline, early leaving, failure at school and child labour are some examples of how this degradation is manifested. So, our school has been included in Priority Intervention Educational Territories Program. Our goals: to ensure inclusion of all students, improve the quality of teaching and learning, implement the competences defined in the students’ profile by the end of compulsory schooling, promote an active and informed citizenship, prevent the early leaving, absenteeism and indiscipline. Assuming a humanistic perspective we notice the needs of each student. It privileges the pedagogical differentiation and transversal approach, collaborative work, supervision, organizational and pedagogical innovation with essential tools towards success and autonomy of sts. Thus our school provides an integral training, diversifying the curriculum in the artistic, sportive and technological components.

PARTNERS

TURKEY - Kosk AYDIN

AYLA VURAL ANADOLU LISESI

https://aylavuralanadolulisesi.meb.k12.tr

Ayla Vural Anatolian High School is in Köşk, Aydın. There are 25 teachers, and 320 pupils. We have the vision of being an original, pioneering and respected educational institution that is connected to the past, raising generations to establish the future. Its mission is to raise individuals in line with their interests and abilities who are at peace with themselves and the society who learn to learn, are open to innovations, are connected to their country, nation, and who can transfer their achievements to life. Most pupils come from nearby towns and villages. Due to their socioeconomic and sociocultural characteristics, they are far from technology (in terms of reach and benefit). Our school has "White Flag" and it’s also Nutrition Friendly School. Besides we run "Zero Waste Project" about recycling. Within the scope of Youth Projects in 2019, we organized "Yörük Ali Efe Cycling Race" and our pupils became winners in category of girls and boys. Our school, which is also active in sports competitions, has degrees and cups in many branches. Tournaments are held every year in volleyball, table tennis, football, chess and basketball branches in the school. Our motives are to provide effective English language learning with digital tools in education programs in the project countries, to prevent digital addiction, to raise individuals who can produce innovation, to enable individuals to use the language effectively in daily life and business, to raise awareness of world citizenship, to create international mobilityand intercultural interaction, to actively take place in the world order.

BULGARIA - Sliven

Secondary Vocational School of Economics "Prof.Dr.Dimitar Tabakov"

http://pgisliven.eu

The school has 500 sts, aged from 14 to 18. It prepares specialists for the Bulgarian economy, in the fields of "Banking", "Operational Accounting", "E-commerce", "Business Administration", "Economic Informatics", “Economics and Management” and “Trade”. 45 qualified teachers give the trainees a wide general knowledge (Literature, Foreign languages, Maths, Science, History, Geography, Physical Education, IT) and professional skills (Economics, Business, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Banking, Insurance, Informatics). Sliven is a typical area of concentration of ethnic minorities. It may be considered to be a socio-economically disadvantaged area comparing it to the other parts of the country. Unemployment, low income, lowered standard of living and poverty place many children in conditions, which lead to increasing the risk of dropping out of school. The school takes preventive measures for at-risk students and tries to create safe and supportive learning environments.The school tries to facilitate the integration of minority and disadvantaged children in the educational system and to deal with the school problems by increasing the interest in the profession and introducing new teaching methods. The school also identifies the talented students and provides a curriculum that enables them to develop and achieve their potential. And the advantages of learning a language are limitless! They include confidence, creativity, new career prospects, improved relationships and more opportunities at the labour market.

ITALY - Capua

ITET FEDERICO II

www.itfederico2.gov.it

We're a point of reference for training commercial experts in Capua, in the south of Italy. It was a Roman town strategically located on the Appian Way. The school was founded in 1989 and has 600 pupils, aged 14 -19, 80 teachersand 12 auxiliary and administrative staff. Italy was hit hard by the economic crisis (2007–11). It has caused decreasing living standard, increasing crime and unemployment rates. Unemployment is a problem for many students’ families. We have students from other countries (Albania, Ukraine, etc), and students who more and more live with a single parent.The school, with projects, responds and adapts its curriculum to the demands of the area, without altering its main role in education and training. We want to be a valid point of reference for pupils who must be persons, citizens and technicians capable of entering into academia and business. The need for this project comes from our School EU Development Plan. Our aim is to prepare the young for conscious participation in national culture seen in the perspective of EU and world culture. Now, to be successful in the labor market, the skills to apply the knowledge and habit to lifelong learning are required. The project will allow us to develop basic skills that a person should model during his lifetime to achieve success in professional and private life.

LITHUANIA - Kulautuva

Kauno r. Kulautuvos pagrindine mokykla

www.kulautuva.lm.lt

School was founded in 1940 Kulautuva Basic School (10th grades) together with the Department of Raudondvaris Gymnasium (11th -12th grades). There are 200 students studying and 28 teachers working in this school. The school implements different non-formal ways of studying: we have circles of aerobics, young researchers, foresters, sports, art and music. The school has established a center for the youngsters – students can spend their time after classes there, they can enjoy various forms of spending their leisure time: training, singing, painting, reading, etc. They are active in participating in different contests and Olympiads of science and mathematics not only in the region of Kaunas, but in the whole Republic, as well. With techonological developments the use of tech in language teaching has been on the increase. Therefore the expectations from teachers and pupils have been changing. We have gained rich experience in the realization of various projects with technological purpose. We believe that our students will be able to improve their IT skills by means of this project. The participation will also provide our pupils additional motivation to increase their understanding of the World. We would like to teach our students to integrate themselves more easily in the European multicultural space and allow them to be productive European citizens. For teachers and students this project will constitute a great personal and professional challenge.

ROMANIA - Alesd

Liceul Teoretic Constantin Serban

http://www.constantinserban.ro/

We' have 1389 students and 94 teachers. Roma, Slovak, Hungarian students also study at our school. There are pupils with special needs, social or financial problems, fewer opportunities, and many students with one or both parents working in other countries and being in their grandparents' care. We've students who travel long distances to school, but transport is provided for distances above 30 km. The pupils with disabilities are helped financially every year. In our school, students of different religions are involved in the same activities as we promote chance equality, tolerance, acceptance of the other. We have Chemistry, Physics, ICT, History and Geography labs, a playground, a sport gym, etc. Our students learn English and French, and also have ICT classes. We include them in many curricular-extracurricular, sportive and artistic activities. We've football, handball, table tennis, chess teams. We also have a good management team which tries to provide all necessary for a good education, which stimulates the teachers to specialize, to improve their personal development. They try to get grants through EU programs. Teachers, pupils, local community and parents, are very well connected to give our students the best education. Local community is also supportive. They help us financially. We're involved many activities that promote chances to develop their language skills, to spend leisure time in creative ways, to form citizenship, to be tolerant and open to diversity and to the problems of others. The reason of joining this project is that we want students to acquire and improve their laguage and digital skills. How we use web tools is going to make a critical difference in how we measure our students success and how they are supported to meet 21st century skills. The sooner we learn to harness these tools' wonderful power, and how they can bring learning alive in the classroom, the better. So we need to take part in this project to exchange good practices.