Parter schools
1. Szkola Podstawowa z Oddzialami Integracyjnymi nr 214
Warsaw, Poland
Szkoła Podstawowa nr 214 is primary school (for children 6-15 years old) in Warsaw (the capital of Poland). Two years ago we celebrated our 50th anniversary. Since 1997 we have conducted inclusive education in which children with special educational needs can learn with non-special needs students. We are considerably small school- there are about 80 teachers and administration employees and about 300 students. We constantly take actions to join numerous projects and social initiatives to improve quality of learning and teaching process. We put countless effort into development of our students. We help and support our students in their problems, difficulties and bad times. Students that needs more help with homework and home study can take advantage of help on free extra classes. There are also classes for talented students to encourage and develop their skills and abilities. We encourage our students to take part in many competitions: from local (organized by our school for our students only) to national and international (''Odyssey of the Mind”, "Kangourou Sans Frontières"). We organize a lot of excursions around Poland to let our students know their country. Our library is a centre of many events like "Reading in the morning''. The European priorities on education and training like preparing students for living in the modern and changing very quickly world, preventing students from leaving school too early are very important aspects for us. They are our goals and work hard to achieve them. We are constantly improving didactic methods and school management. In 2016 we had a possibility to learn a lot because of Erasmus+ KA1 courses and we are looking forward to employing our new knowledge in practice and extending it outside our school. Our students come from quite a diverse background (from poor to well-to-do neighbourhood) and represent different social classes.
Since the school is located in an old Warsaw District (Bielany) national and culture diversity is considerably low. Therefore, it is absolutely vital to the school to provide our students with the possibility to meet people from different countries and learn their culture and traditions.
In recent years Małgorzata Włoczewska conducted a school project "Chemistry: Molecular Gastronomy". The main aims of the project was to:
- interest students in chemistry by means of molecular gastronomy;
- increase knowledge of chemistry;
- prove that molecular gastronomy is a modern idea of cooking;
- show that molecular gastronomy recipes are easy to make.
In previous years we were engaged in several intresting culture and history projects: "Bernardo Bellotto - The Ambassador of European Culture", "Canaletto- Walking Around Warsaw", "Record History!" and "The Baptism of Poland Festival". Key persons involved in the project are characterised by the following skills and experience:
- Dawid Migacz - coordinator of project, English teacher. MA in English Philology ,MA in Sociology. The teacher is going to be responsible for coordinating the entire project. His sociological experience and approach are going to help build and maintain effective communication between diverse countries.
- Małgrzata Włoczewska - science (chemistry) teacher. MSC in Biotechnology. The chemistry teacher is going to be responsible for the molecular/science aspect of the project.
2. OS Gornje Vrapce
Zagreb, Croatia
OŠ Gornje Vrapče is elementary school in which children receive primary and secondary education from the ages about seven to fifteen. The school was established more than 50 years ago. It is a small school on the outskirts of the city of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It has good technical base having at the disposal big gym, schoolyard, library and well-equipped classrooms . We have 298 students and 28 teachers. Several students have special needs and they are integrated into regular classes. For students who have any difficulties we organize extra classes where they can practice more, get help with their homework. The talented ones have variety of extra-curricular classes to choose from . We also organize school trips which let students know their country see different regions, learn geography or history in a much more practical way. There are annual festivals, performers and competitions arranged by students and teachers. The cultural tradition and festivals represent an important curriculum aspect in education. Our students enjoy participating in sports, singing, playing, visits to museums and theater. Several of our students achieved the top results at national competitions in computer science, mathematics, astronomy, debate and first aid. Among other things, our school takes part in various European projects, such as: Erasmus+, eTwinning, Open Discovery Space, Inspiring Science Education, InGenious, U4Energy.
The main objectives of the education and didactic work are focused on preparing students for living in modern world, changing very quickly and develop pupils’ psycho-physical abilities. Our students are educated according to universal values, tolerance, solidarity, democracy, patriotism.
The school’s priority is to improve the school management and teaching-learning methods according to EU priorities and to use these to create an educationally motivating environment. The teachers and school staff encourage students to grow as individuals and become good citizens of the United Europe.
Our school has experience with many projects:
- Encourage students to think about the important events of the past that have influenced the construction of Croatian identity. (Projects: My homeland, My city of Zagreb)
- Getting to know the culture and religion of language-speaking countries that are taught in our school and improving communication in these languages (Project: Meet the European Union, Traveling through Europe)
- Developing intercultural skills that allow understanding and acceptance of the other and different, regardless of race or religious affiliation. (Project: We respect diversity)
Key persons involved in this project are highly competent (university degree, Master) and they regularly attend training courses and seminars. They provide students with high standard of teaching and stimulate students’ creativity by using modern, active methods which at the same time support the learning process and train pupils to be autonomous in learning.
3. Scuola secondaria di primo grado Borgese-XXVII Maggio
Palermo, Italy
We are a big school in the outskirts of Palermo. In our schools there are 120 staff members and about 700 students aged 11/14. The area is populated by mixed level people consisting of mainly lower social classes, the unemployed and people working on temporary contracts. As a result, our students do not have many opportunities of extra school activities such as sport, music lessons, cinema, travelling.
In our institution there are musica courses for students and our teachers are specialized in Piano, Guitar, Percussion and Saxophone. We have many years of experience in it and our orchestra participated and won prizes in school competitions.
Our school has a significant experience in sport. We teach volleyball and we aim at long learning implementation of this activity among our students. Our teachers are experienced volleyball players as well as excellent trainers. Since we believe sport is an attractive activity for young learners, we use it to recruit children and young people to health and education programmes. As a result, we run sports group activities both in our school and in the schools of the area to deliver educational messages to participants and spectators and to offer our children extra school activities. At the same time we work a lot on nutritional education and 0km alimentation.
We are actually involved in a Erasmus+ project called "Learning through sports" with Turkey, Greece, Czech Republic and Poland.
Our school is involved in European projects and in particuliar one of them is about exchange of good practises, "Learning through sports".
In the area of alimentation and nutritional education we work a lot on sustainability and sustainable nutrition. We are one of the few schools in Italy that grow up project about these subjects and we participated with our science teachers at formation courses promoted by Italian Instruction Minister.
We often organize courses and invite teachers, agriculturists and entrepreneurs to testify their experience about ancient way of work, the effects of the industrial agriculture and environmental education. We work with our students on critical consumer and 0km alimentation trying to built a new sensibility and critical meaning about our earth and its difficult future.
4. INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN SECUNDARIA "VILLA DE ABARÁN"
Abaran, Spain
Regarding the skills, teachers are involved in different courses, in order to improve their teaching, some of them in our school and others on line. Some teachers are studying in public or private Language Schools or they are going abroad to study there.
There is a teacher who is an engineer, a biology one and the headmaster, who is also involved in the project. He is a teacher and a musician. Art teachers are also going to cooperate. An English teacher in our group has got special abilities as far as computer is concerned. We are expected to be 7 or 8 teachers.
Our school has got great experience in Comenius and Erasmus projects, as you can see in the next answer. In addition to it, we have been teachers for many years, always improving abilities and spreading our knowledge. There is a department of Biology in which one teacher is especially involved, and another one of chemistry. A chemistry lab and a biology one are also available for students, who do practices everyweek. They are also connected to university, sharing knowledge and contacts are frequent. Every year, a sci-week is organize. Students do experiments so that everybody can see them.