Comenius: "Let's Travel!": Gimnazjum 24 w Zabrzu (Zabrze, Poland)

Friday 27 November 2009

Gimnazjum 24 w Zabrzu (Zabrze, Poland)

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

This Blog

The project Blog contains everything related to the Comenius project “Let’s Travel!”: summary, objectives, activities, mobilities, project meetings, results, evaluation… It is a visual and dynamic online platform which illustrates and disseminates the project development through regular updating: writings, introductions, descriptions of places, pictures and videos on Tourism as a topic. All outcomes on the Blog are the results of students’ and teachers’ common team work at the seven partner schools.

The Garden in Portugal

Although uncompleted, coordinators from the seven partner schools decided to maintain the Garden in Portugal as one of the most emotive outcomes of our project. Seeds of plants from the local flora in each country were sent to the school in Portugal. Students of Tourism and Gardening from Ferreira do Zêzêre collected and let them germinate. They created a greenhouse, which was unfortunately seriously damaged by a destructive tornado at the beginning of 2011. A big part of the garden got lost.

Evaluation Questionnaires and Power Point Presentation

Three model questionnaires for mobilities were made, separately for guests (teachers and students) and hosts (students). Teachers and students who took part in mobility filled these questionnaires after each meeting and conclusions were compiled by Polish teachers to make our work better and more efficient. The most important conclusions from questionnaires were summed in the Power Point presentation which was presented during the last mobility in Spain, were all coordinators from partner schools were present.

7 Different Kinds of Tourism in 7 Different Countries

The seven partner schools of the Project “Let’s Travel!” did of Tourism a topic to investigate and analyse. They found out the characteristics, the means of transport, the baggage, the accommodation, the duration and the money required for seven different kinds of tourism and tourists in the seven partnership countries. They produced a considerable quantity of documents with information and pictures on activities related to cultural, historical, religious, natural, health, sport and educational tourism.