Involved schools
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria.It is located about 231 kilometres (144 mi) away from Sofia.It is situated in an important agricultural area with roduction of cereals, fruits and vegetable-growing.In our school there are about 1000 pupils between 6 and 14 years.There is also an integrated education in our school-students of national minority(Gipsy,Turkish)and we are going to involve them in the project activities.They live in bad conditions;their parents have problems with finding job. This cooperations with Europeans countries can help us to improve students` educational about environment.
The organisation is a primary school, situated in the suburbs of Nicosia, the capital of the country.
250 students attend aged 6-12. The area is increasingly becoming urban and the effects on the natural environment by the human activity are becoming more and more obvious in the area. Students however do not realise those effects and they do not have the opportunity to observe the natural biodiversity of the area. Through this project students will be able to observe and make scientific measurements regarding the environment and find ways to adopt a sustainable way of living.
Moreover, students, in an approximately 95%, are middle-class Greek Cypriots. Some immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe attend to our school in the last few years and there is only a language programme to integrate them. Unfortunately, some minor incidents of verbal racism against those students by other students were noticed. Classes discuss issues of racism but the efforts of creating a multicultural school society are in a primary level. We believe that Comenius project is a helpful program towards those efforts, because students will have the opportunity to communicate, learn many things about other nations and finally respect the cultural diversity in a society.
Finally, Cyprus is the southern-eastern point in Europe and since it is an island is relatively isolated from the rest of Europe. Thus, Cypriots and in this case students do not have the opportunity to communicate with other Europeans unless they travel by plane. The idea of the European unity through a multicultural dialogue sounds very theoretical in students’ mind. The particular project will help students to get familiar, communicate with other students from across Europe and live in practice the European unity dream.
Our school is situated in the Southern Finland, about 100 kilometres from our capital Helsinki. Our school is the biggest school in Hämeenlinna with 800 pupils. We have classes from 1-9, the age of the pupils between 7-16. We have five special classes for pupils with various learning difficulties. Pupils for these special classes come from other schools of the area, too. We also have 20 pupils from other cultures (with foreign background). The first six years (classes 1-6) the pupils are taught mainly by class teachers and the years from 7-9 by subject teachers. Classes 1-6 will take part in this project. There are about 400 pupils and 20 teachers in Hämeenlinnan yhteiskoulu/ Tuomelan yksikkö.
We are interested in taking part in a Comenius project for many reasons. One of the most important reasons is the opportunity that this kind of a project gives to our school to learn about culture in other European countries in an active way, instead of just reading about them in schoolbooks. Our pupils live in a very modern society, but our school lacks international connections with other European schools. Our school wants to be a part of Europe, European lifestyle and culture. The pupils and teachers would also improve their skills in communicating in foreign languages. The technology has a very important role in Finnish schools in general, but our school has still a lot to learn. Our aim is to teach our pupils new, modern ways of using technology and social media ( for example eTwinning, wikipedia, email) in different subjects. This project would make the learning concrete.
Our town Hämeenlinna offers our partners great opportunities for learning about Finnish history, nature and culture (for example The Häme Castle, the birthplace of Jean Sibelius, National Park Aulanko, Lake and waterway Vanaja).
Villerest is a small village situated next to Roanne (a rather big city with 35 000 inhabitants) and this area suffers from its hemmed-in position.
People live in Villerest but work in Roanne because there are no factories here.
About 8% of people are unemployed.
There are some gypsy families but now they settle.
The 117 students of our school are divided into five classes: from 6 years’ old to 10 years’ old.
We are building a new school project: our objectives are improving the results of the students in the reading (comprehension of the texts) and improving their skills in speaking a modern foreign language ( English at Villerest).
Our new school project will put the stress on the education to a sustainable development: we already drive several actions in that field and we want to go further.
The meaning of our participation to a European Comenius project is to open the mind of our students to the world in communicating with others students of European countries, in exchanging experiences, in sharing works.
The ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO DI CAVAGLIA’ (Bi) , coordinator of the project, 836 pupils, 10 schools, includes departments of nursery(3), primary(4), and secondary school(3). Take part in the project the primary schools. The area, located at the borderline of the district of Biella, in Piedmont, includes 7 municipality. People who live in our country come from different Italian regions and from other countries (East Europe, North Africa, India, China). Now the area is influenced by the textile and automotive industry slump. Now many people are unemployed and many families are divided. The pupils have the special learning needs. There are also disabled pupils with special needs, (blind and down’s syndrome ) integrated in our classes.
The use of ICT is scant and the area is still closed to the EU opportunities. An European project is very important: as a matter of fact it offers our community and our pupils the opportunity of knowing other countries, cultures and ways of life, in order to enlarge their orisons, especially for their future life as European citizens.
The Council Town will cooperate at the project.
The school is situated in the rural area, so the pupils are in risk of being socially excluded in the future. To prevent that situation we want to join the Comenius project to to compare and contrast the different cultures, communities and environments of the participating countries maximizing the use of a wide range of Information and Communication Technologies.
Pupils will be involved in a range of skills to exchange information which would help to reduce any prejudice and preconceived ideas or views they may have had of other countries and people. In addition to this, it will be our intention to involve parents and the local community via exhibitions of our work so as to reach a wider audience.
The school has: 388 pupils, 1 building, includes nursery (5 classrooms) and primary (12 classes). The primary school takes part in the project.
The school is located at Santa Cruz, the city were is the airport. The area is influenced, like the whole island, by the tourism and agriculture. Some pupils have special learning needs. There are also disabled pupils integrated in our classes.
Despite the contact with European visitors, the idea of the European unity through a multicultural dialog sounds very far in student’s mind. This project will help students to get familiar and communicate with other students from Europe and get a closer knowledge of European countries and their realities.
romania
The school was built 45 years ago and it is a representative one in our town. We have 960 students divided in 33 classes, 17 for primary school (pupils between 6-10) and 16 for middle school (pupils between 11-15). They are very motivated and speak English, French and German. Our school has got 26 large and up-to-date classrooms for teaching process, 4 laboratories (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, ITC).There are also 4 Art subjects departments for foreign languages, one for Romanian language, 1 for History and 1 for Religion lessons. The school is also endowed with 2 sport grounds, a gym hall and a library with 16400 books. There is also a festival hall with 250 seats.
The policy of our school is to give the students the opportunity and possibility to learn foreign languages,that is why they start English in the first grade and German and French from the 5th grade. Our teachers and students are involved in lot of international projects such as Comenius, Eco-School, ENO-school competition, Spring Day in Europe, People to People International, Character first and e-Twinning.
ZER RIU ONDARA – TORNABOUS – CATALUNYA – (Spain)
We are two rural schools one in Tornabous and the other in Barbens about 50 pupils each
that included pre-school, primary.
We are two different schools situated in different villages but we work together as a one
school. We share all the organisation of the school ( administrative, education project, peripatetic
teacher , the principal and the staff of the ZER
Geographically we are situated in a plain in Lleida , a region of Catalonia about
150 km from Barcelona and about 100 km from Pyrenees (border to France). It’s
an interior region and the people works in agriculture and industry.
Our pupils don’t need a special attention but we have a lot of migration from
Morocco and Rumanian ( about 30% of the students) and they need a specific
attention when they arrived at the school. We have a protocol to integrate these
new students about language, class group, a first contact teacher
Our school have been built in 1932 after the greatest eartquake of Turkey. In our school have been 130 students (from 6 to 14 ages),13 teachers and they have been keep going to the education with their staffs. While evaluating the concept of the school as social economic and soscial cultural, our school has some more advantages than the others. Our pupils have known their own culture and they have been eager for the others’ culture. At the same time they have been feeling ready and interested in related project. Our teachers and staffs have enough abilitiy, skill and motivation for taking part in this multi-cultural project. As checking the profile of students, there have been many students that come to school from different part of the city. Due to the fact that getting immigrant from other cities of the country to Yalova, this situation have been producing diversity on profile of students in our school. We have a friendship school which our students have been acquired some solidarity and they have been joining with each other. Most of our sudents have been going to the kinds of courses and some social activities after the school education. They have always been using the technology of computer and participating the most of the organization which have been held in our country.Our aim is at first to participate the Comenius project which have been held by our partner andso we might transfer our background of experience and be part of the common European culture with our pupils and teachers. It may provide our pupils a chance to be part of multi-cultural and they may introduce themselves to a new culture. It is important to us that our pupils evaluate and appreciate the differences and similarities related to a new society and culture. At the same time they can improve their communication skills with our other partnership while developing the project. We hope that for each partner we can see the differences as a colour and reflect it our life with pleasure.