Escola Pedro Ferreiro - Ferreira do Zêzere, Portugal

We are a public school, headquarters of all the Ferreira do Zêzere schools. It includes six schools from the first grade, six kinder gardens, one school center and our school, that is from the fifth to the twelfth form, because it has second grade, third grade and secondary. At night it offers an adult’s education.

This school has thirty-three classes including two Courses of Education and Formation and three Profissional Courses; about five hundred and forty-four day pupils, one hundred and five students at night and ninety-one teachers. The school has twenty-five general employees and nine administrative.

The school is situated in a rural municipality in the center of the country that has about ten thousand habitants. The village of Ferreira do Zêzere has two thousand habitants. Most of our pupils use the public bus to get to school. The school activities occur between nine o’clock and half past five. There are no public buses at night but there are classes from seven o’clock to twelve o’clock in the evening.

The students from Pedro Ferreiro School are between ten and eighteen years old. They are mainly girls, though the difference between the number of boys and girls isn’t very significant.

It’s a municipality with little economic resources. The agriculture and wood production still have a main role. There are few industries and those are related to the production and transformation of meat.

In the village most people work at public services. Tourism is an area with a growing importance because Ferreira do Zêzere is situated near Castelo do Bode lagoon, in Europe’s biggest artificial lake, that gives it a special natural heritage.

The school population is the result of this social and economic figure, there are several students with economic needs that are supported by School Social Help. Their parents are low educated with a small cultural level and a conservative philosophy of life.

Ferreira do Zêzere has a strong history of emigration but now it is also receiving immigrants from Holland and Germany that want to live in a beautiful and natural environment and foreign workers from east countries and China that are looking for better jobs.

The school tries to give answers to the pupils with social and economic needs and lack of ambitions, it gives them some financial support with the canteen and snack bar service and motivates them to choose appropriated professional and educational ways: Professional Courses and Courses of Education and Formation. The school prevents school failure and dropout participating in several projects as the National Reading Project, The Math’s in Action Project and the Education for Health Project. It also offers several extra curricular activities such as school sports, journalism or art courses and looks for the increasing use of foreign languages with the German Project, Languages courses and Comenius Assistant Project.

Ferreira do Zêzere
Wikipedia

"Let's travel" - Objektives

1. To develop a two years partnership program that will enrich the partner institutions, their students and their regions.
2. To raise awareness of tourism as an alternative and an instrument to discover the cultural, natural, ecological and scientific aspects of our own and that of others.
3. To provide a new perspective of diversity, differences and variety to rich integration through it.
4. To use tourism opportunities to improve students foreign languages command and ICT skills to develop entrepreneurial skills.
5. To provide a variety of opportunities for the students and staff of the participating institutions to interact and collaborate.
6. To share good practice between institutions concerning learning, teaching and evaluating experiences.
7. To increase the self-confidence, open-mindedness, team work spirit and problem-solving skills of the students.
8. To foster the value of cooperation between European schools and regions.

Gimnazjum 24 w Zabrzu (Zabrze, Poland)

Wikipedia

Education in Poland starts at the age of six (or seven) years in primary school. Next is the lower secondary level consisting of three years in Gimnazjum, starting at the age of 13, ends with an exam. This is followed by upper secondary level, which has several alternatives, the most common being the three years in a liceum or four years in a technikum. Both end with a maturity examination (matura, quite similar to French baccalauréat), and may be followed by several forms of upper education, leading to licencjat or inżynier (the Polish Bologna Process first cycle qualification), magister (the Polish Bologna Process second cycle qualification) and eventually doktor (the Polish Bologna Process third cycle qualification).

Gimnazjum nr 24 in Zabrze (Poland)

Gimnazjum nr 24 is junior high school for children from 13 to 16 years old. Our school is situated in the most northern part of Zabrze called Helenka. Most of the families settled there after 1945, mainly in late 70’s, when we could observe an economic boom in our region (Silesia), which, thanks to this situation, was perceived as the area of the prosperity. Social status of our pupil’s parents, measured with their educational level, is rather low. Most of them have finished vocational school, some of them have the secondary education, whereas only few of them have higher education. Nowadays the most considerable problem in our district is unemployment and little participation of our inhabitants in cultural life. Moreover many of pupils come from single-parent families. On the other hand, there is lack of refugee families or migrating population in this area.

The majority of our students achieve average or even low results during their school years and exams. This is the main reason why we are trying to focus on modernity and high quality in teaching process. During last years we opened two classes with innovative program of teaching. We are also participating in national and international educational projects (f.e. Comenius), which are the source of satisfaction both for teacher and for student, and increase their motivation to work. We are also trying to develop our students’ talents by individual preparation to participating in different competitions.

All students in our school are learning an English language and they pass it during the final exams in the end of this educational level. This is also the first year when our students are obligated to learn the second language on this educational level, which, in our school, is German.

The school is trying to be present in local community. During every year we are trying to organize attractive extracurricular activities for children and adults (e.g. recreational sports activities, English Club, school theatre). We are also cooperating with club of senior citizens (unpaid facilitating classrooms for club meetings, artistic performances of our pupils during meetings, etc.). The school building is usually open for them to 20.30.

www.gimnazjum24zabrze.pl

IES Joan Ramis i Ramis - Maó, Menorca

The “IES Joan Ramis i Ramis” (www.iesjoanramis.org) is a General Secondary Education School. It is located in the capital city of Minorca, Maó, which has a population of around thirty thousand people. There are four secondary schools in the city. Ours is one of the eldest schools in the Balearic Islands and hosts around a thousand students and more than a hundred teachers. Compulsory secondary education is from 12 to 16 in our country, and non compulsory from 16 to 18. So we have students between 12 and 18 years old. Most of them go to school from the whole city. Students from neighbouring towns take the school transport service.

Minorca’s population has changed during the last years. Tourism has become the most important economical sector. Industry and agriculture are both very important economical branches in the island too. Economy is suffering a recession and unemployment is growing. Although most of our pupils come from Minorca, population is not so homogeneous anymore. Immigrants from South Spain came to work on tourism in the summer season. Some of them stayed and established on the island. The British colony is also quite numerous. To these first immigrants it has to be added the migration of the last years. Many students come from other countries of West and East Europe, and also students from South and Central America, North and Sub-Saharian Africa (15%, 24 nationalities, 13 languages).

Our school has several educational programmes in order to integrate children from other cultures in the school life, and in Minorca’s life in general. Other programmes intend to face some students’ learning, behavioral or social needs. Students with special educational needs are inserted in the school system (3,45%). Our school is working on programs to prevent students’ failure and dropout. Five languages can be learned in our school: Catalan and Spanish, and three foreign languages, English, French and German.

Bunyolada de Tots Sants, '09

C.2.4. Description of the partner school (10 - 15 lines)

School context

General Secondary Education Centre (High School Education, Vocational, Technical Education, compulsory, post compulsory Education…)

Location

Size (students and staff)

Rural / urban / suburban area

Use of public transport to get to the school, school transport service

Students' description

Male / female students

Age

Student's philosophy of life (conservative, traditional, self confident, emancipated, open minded, generous, hardworking, bright…)

Society and economy (tourism, agriculture, industry…) / (Family income, poor / reach families, middle class, unemployment…)

Migrants / Immigrant background / Children of foreign workers / Labour migration

Cultural and linguistic diversity

Religion

School projects and programs

Pupil’s motivation / attitude/ behaviour / learning methods / social conducts

Students with learning, behavioural and social needs

Students with special educational needs

Insertion, integration, multiculturalism...

Preventing school failure and dropout

ICT and Foreign languages

Afternoons

School lunches, school canteen

Homework

Comenius Partnership Application Form 2009

Kurt-Tucholsky-Schule, Flensburg - Germany

The school in Flensburg near the Danish border belongs to a region, which is economically weak. Comparing with other regions in country, unemployment is high. Tourism is one of the more important branches of economy. Financial power and families prosperity is limited. We operate at the outskirts of the city and draw pupils from a wide range of areas, agricultural and urban. As part of the educational reform, school will reorganize common learning, bringing together students with different educational needs. We are “Europe-School”; we feel that the opportunity to participate in this type of project provides students with the opportunity to live European ideas.

Bratislava (Miquel)

Bratislava (Milena)

Mailing Transilvània

Benvolgudes i benvolguts companys i companyes,

A Bratislava hem començat a perfilar un projecte sobre turime, amb el lema: "Let's travel! Tourism as a way of learning". L'escola interessada a associar-se amb el Ramis és situada a una ciutat just al centre de Romania. Sighisoara és a la regió més coneguda del país, tots sabreu de quina es tracta... A Bratislava es van redactar el sumari i alguns dels objectius del projecte. El projecte ha estat molt ben rebut entre els membres de la Comissió d'Activitats Extaescolars i entre els de la Directiva. Hi ha força iniciatives i accions en joc.

S'ha proposat que si es decideix celebrar el Carnaval el tema siguin els vampirs... S'ha proposat també que el concurs literari de Sant Jordi d'enguany volti entorn de la literatura de terror. Es proposa la lectura de l'obra literària del personatge més conegut de la regió, o el personatge a través del qual va fer famosa aquesta regió... Hi ha també en joc 24 mobiltats, com a mínim 24 viatges, que el curs passat es van subvencionar a l'Estat Espanyol per 20.000€, mobilitats d'alumnes i professors... També hi ha en joc crèdits de formació per al professorat que participi en aquest projecte educatiu tot desenvolupant activitats a l'aula i viatjant... Hi ha la possibilitat de presentar-se a premis escolars un dels criteris dels quals és la participació en projectes internacionals...

La iniciativa té també moltes repercussions pedagògiques, però li manca una peça clau: un tercer soci, ja que tres socis és el mínim exigit per formar una associació multilateral Comenius. Des de la Comissió d'Activitats Complementàries i Extraescolars intentarem aconseguir que un altre partner s'afegeixi al nostre projecte a través de l'Agència espanyola de programes internacionals, talment com està fent la nostra col·lega romanesa, o potser també a través del programa europeu e-twining.

Com que del que aquí es tracta és de fer pública la iniciativa i de demanar la participació en el projecte, el primer que ara mateix requereix el centre és com a mínim una tercera escola que s'afegeixi al projecte. Qualsevol idea o qualsevol mediació per part del professorat serà molt ben rebuda.

Atentament,

Extraescolars

(PS. torn a aprofitar per recordar-vos que el 25 de novembre és el Dia Internacional de la No Violència de Gènere i que el 10 de gener és el Dia Internacional dels Drets Humans. La Comissió d'ACE és a la vostra disposició per col·laborar en la coordinació de qualsevol activitat que s'organitzi al respecte.)

Sighisoara

Agenda del Seminari de Contacte de Bratislava

Agenda Bratislava

Guia de Bratislava

"Organismo Autónomo Programas Educativos Europeos"

Associació Multilateral Comenius - Seminari de Bratislava

El Programa Comenius depèn de l’Organisme Autònom de Programes Educatius Europeus (OAPEE), forma part del Programa d’Aprenentatge Permanent (PA) i subvenciona entre d’altres les següents accions: associacions escolars entre centres educatius amb la finalitat de desenvolupar projectes educatius conjunts per a l’alumnat i el professorat, cursos de formació per al professorat, visites preparatòries per a activitats de mobilitat amb vistes a desenvolupar una associació escolar, etc.

Les associacions de centres escolars tenen l’objectiu de reforçar la dimensió europea de l’educació. Els projectes ofereixen a l’alumnat i al professorat dels diferents països l’oportunitat de treballar conjuntament en un o més camps temàtics. Les associacions escolars també ajuden a millorar el treball en equip, les relacions socials, la planificació i el desenvolupament d’activitats i la utilització de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació (TIC). Participar en una associació també ofereix a l’alumnat i al professorat l’oportunitat de practicar idiomes i augmentar la motivació del seu aprenentatge.

Hi ha dos tipus d’associacions escolars: associacions multilaterals, que inclouen centres educatius de com a mínim tres Estats, i associacions bilaterals, que només són possibles amb un enfocament clarament lingüístic i han d’incloure necessàriament un intercanvi recíproc d’alumnat. Tant les associacions multilaterals com les bilaterals tenen una duració de 2 anys.

Les associacions multilaterals poden tractar àrees temàtiques com les arts, les ciències, els idiomes, l’educació mediambiental, el patrimoni cultural, la ciutadania europea, l’ús de les TIC o la lluita contra el racisme. Les activitats del projecte s’han d’integrar en les activitats regulars dels centres educatius i s’han d’incloure en el currículum de l’alumnat. L’alumnat també hauria de participar en totes les fases del projecte, incloent-hi la planificació, l’organització i l’avaluació d’activitats.

Les associacions bilaterals pretenen promoure la diversitat lingüística a Europa tot fomentant l’ús de totes les llengües oficials de la Unió Europea, particularment les llengües menys parlades i ensenyades.


L’Agència Nacional d’Eslovàquia ha convocat un seminari de contacte del dia 5 al 8 de novembre a Bratislava amb vistes a desenvolupar projectes entre associacions de centres escolars de Secundària entorn al món de l’empresa i l’entrada en el mercat laboral. La visita és una oportunitat per als participants de tota Europa de trobar futurs socis. La llengua de treball és l’anglès i es demana un nivell B2 segons el Marc Europeu de Referència. Els participants són instats a preparar presentacions audiovisuals dels seus centres, de la seva regió i/o del seu país. S’anima també a portar productes culinaris típics, música, etc. L’agenda del seminari de tres dies és força intensa ja que té lloc de les 9 del matí fins al vespre. La data límit per lliurar la sol•licitud per participar en aquest seminari de contacte és el dia 12 d’octubre de 2009.