SOCIAL NETWORKS
PRESENTATION SCHOOLS
Primary School nr 2 in Łowicz is one of the oldest schools in the town with rich history and tradition. The age of students attending the school ranges from 7 do 15. Now it includes the last grades of the middle school called Gimnazjum number 2 which, after the reformation of educational system in Poland, was taken over by the primary school. It has about 650 students coming from different social background and 60 teachers. The school has always been interested in looking for and developing different students’ talents and interests and their skills. There are a lot of clubs which concern different field of studies and focus on developing different skills such as: Chemistry Club, Physics Club, Cycling Club for those interested both in cycling and in geography, Language Club as well as Science and ICT Club. There is a Drama Club run the Polish and Literature teacher who together with students prepares performances, plays and shows. Foreign languages are also very important for the school. Primary School number 2 always celebrates the International Day of European Languages encouraging students to learn foreign language through performances and school competitions. In 2014 the school was the grantee of the program run by The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management and was granted money for the creation and development of a science lab at school. Thanks to the grant the school could buy new equipment to the lab. The chemistry and Science teacher who will be engaged in the project could develop students interest in science thanks to contacts with other students and at the same time could develop own language skills. The project will give students and teachers the opportunity to develop themselves in different skills. We know how important it is to focus nowadays on the development of competences not only directly connected with school but on the ability to function well in the environment apart form a learning place. Students are eager to learn other cultures, traditions and at the same time brush up their English, which they have been learning since the first grade. Four teachers will be directly involved in the project: two English teachers, Math teachers and Science teacher. However, more teachers are willing to cooperate by preparing workshops, having extra classes, teaching students different skills. For example there will be workshops on different fields, run by a Polish Teacher, ICT teacher, PE and Dance as well as school pedagogue. All together we calculate that at least one hundred students can be involved somehow in the project: some of them taking part in simultaneous ETwinning Project, some of them in classes and workshops, developing their skills and some taking part in motilities and hosting. The person, however who will be responsible for signing the documents will be the head teacher and she will also take active part in the project delegating tasks and having control on the quality of work done.
Our school, Austbø, is situated on the south-west coast of Norway. Stavanger is on the wet and windy coast and it is the oil- capital of Norway which makes it an international melting pot. Austbø is a secondary school with 340 students from 13-16 years of age. We are about 30 teachers who cover all the subjects needed for students to continue higher education. The students come from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. We have motivated students who are always ready to broaden their perspective. All students speak English and most students have a second foreignlanguage such as French, German or Spanish. As a part of the Norwegian public school system, there are no particular educational programmes for students to choose from. We have never participated in an Erasmus project, but have taken part in a Comenius project a few years back. We are very much looking forward to taking part in this project. Our motivation to take part in this project is the topic itself. We constantly work with all aspects of mental health at our school and have ongoing projects on this matter. We teach about illnesses, resilience and the art of coping with life in an ever-changing environment. The teaching material for our mental health programs is provided by the Ministry of Health and Care Services. We also teach about sexuality in our current Sexual Education Week in which we work with materials provided by the Norwegian branch of IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) an supported by the Norwegian authorities. We also have an elective called International cooperation which focuses on issues such as cultural exchange
and interpersonal contact between students from many countries. The project will be managed by two teachers to start with. They teach international co-operation, social studies, history, and geography apart from Norwegian and English, religion and French, respectively. Later, another teacher is going to join the team; he teaches English, Norwegian and computer coding. We have strong support from our management and our team is solid and strong enough to find replacements in the unlikely event of any of us leaving. We have a very well educated staff, our own school nurse with a specialization in student health care. Also, there is a physiotherapist connected to the school.
The municipality also has its own department that deals with soft skill issues. These can also be connected both from the school, but also from this project if needed.
6 GYMNASIO KAVALAS (GREECE)
Our school is in northern Greece, in Kavala city, in a bright green area perfect for the running of aschool unit. It is a multipower school unit of secondary education that has incorporation classes forstudents with learning difficulties. There are 25 experienced and well-grounded teachers that coverall the students’ needs and 230 students who follow their obligatory secondary education and areprepared for the high school. They come from a different economic, social and cultural backgroundand they have the mood and the motive to strengthen and improve their progress and to take part in
innovative actions. As the school supports vividly the cooperation between European countriesdecided last year to take part in an Erasmus+ project. It’s called “New people, new friends, new horizons” and it mainly deals with immigration and refugees. 4 teachers of the school are responsible to carry out this project and 30 students take part. Kavala has accepted some refugees the last two years so we believe that cooperation between European schools is the best solution in order to find the most appropriate educational methods to integrate refugees in the local society and in education.
This project gave us the opportunity to realize that our students are eager to take part in European projects but sometimes they face difficulties to take decisions, to communicate and to work in teams and finally, they don’t feel strong enough to present their work. So we think that a project on soft skills will strengthen their abilities and will help them to be more prepared to cope with problems they are going to face as adults. Moreover, our school participates every year in exchange programs. Last
year students and teachers of our school visited Portugal, studying monuments of cultural heritage and this year they are going to visit Finland and Estonia to study the educational system of their countries. Apart from this, we run every year e-twinning projects, environmental and cultural projects, and our school participates in the Greek educational network “I am interested and I act” which promotes volunteering and action on problems of everyday life. The project on soft skills will be coordinated by a team of 4 people: the headmistress of the school and 3 teachers (a teacher of Greek language, a teacher of English, and a teacher of German) with the support of other teachers as well who teach in the 3rd class of the school and they are willing to get involved in the project if someone of the coordinators can’t go on with the project. 30 students from 14 to 15 years old are going to participate in the project. We strongly believe that our small experience in Erasmus projects but our big experience in innovative educational approaches that our school applies the recent years (new technologies, special education, exchange projects) can contribute decisively to this project so that it will be a successful and fruitful project for all the involved participants.
The school was created 25 years ago in a 7000-inhabitants village; it's its only secondary school. The school has some 500 students in 18 groups (from 12 to 18 years old), taught by 45 teachers. They follow their secondary obligatory education (from 12 to 16) and the preparation for higher education (16-18). The school has always dedicated a lot of resources to its internationalization, so, nowadays we take part in 3 Erasmus+ projects: - “Communication is the Key”, for 12-13 y.o. students; it mainly deals with Emotional Education (4 teachers are specifically in charge of it) - “Art and design for a better world” for 13-14 y.o. students (2 teachers) - “Healthy Living, Eco Acting", for 14-15 y.o. students. Thanks to it, empowered students have an important role to improve students' sustainable habits (3 teachers). There's a strong connection among these projects. The project on the soft skills
will also connect with them and will take advantage of what our community learned through them. Especially the actions undertaken in the 3rd project will continue -partially adapted- into this project.
Students can learn French and German; to deepen this internationalization of the school, we also have two exchange programs with France and Germany, and we are working to get one with Great Britain. Other programs we have: A group of 4 teachers is spreading CLIL methodology, introduced in our school some years ago. A program on Emotional Education for 12-13 y.o. students that emerged from the “Communication is the Key” project. It involves 5 teachers. Departing from this
point, and trying to go a step further and to have a wider approach, the school sees in deepening in the Soft Skills a powerful tool to offer our students a more globalized education. In these last years we saw that by giving an International dimension to the projects we undertook, we strengthened them. This is why we want to undertake this international project on this topic. As usual in our school, this project will take the form of an optional subject (3 weekly hours). Language (Catalan, Spanish, and English) and Coaching will be also involved in the project. This project will be coordinated by 3
teachers (now involved in the project "Healthy Living, Eco Acting", finishing August 2019) who teach English, History, Technologies, and P.E., with the support of all 3rd level teachers. If any of these teachers for any reason could not go on with the project, the team is solid and experienced enough in European projects, so that the headmistress would assign one of these experienced teachers to this project. We believe that our expertise in managing and coordinating KA2 projects (since 2015) and our experience in the topics mentioned in these programs, that -in a kind of a natural way- have led us to decide to plan an international project on this topic, are the main strengths that we can contribute to the project and that can let us envisage it's going to be successful.