Our Comenius Project
BRINGING A EUROPEAN DIMENSION TO OUR SCHOOLS FRANCE - ITALY - SCOTLAND - SPAIN
Summary of Progress - April to June - term 3
Monday, 25 June 2012
Teachers from France, Italy and Spain came to Scotland in April for our Comenius progress meeting in April 2012. Scottish Hospitality Our guests enjoyed visiting many of our local sites around Ednam and Kelso, as well as visiting places of interest in Edinburgh. Around Edinburgh our guests were welcomed at the Scottish Parliament by Paul Wheelhouse MSP for the Scottish Nationalist Party in the Scottish Borders. The parliament building was designed by Catalan architect Enrique Morales. Our group also visited Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace, and had a walk up Salisbury Crags, a volcanic hill by the side of Holyrood Place. We went down by the coast to see the Forth Rail Bridge, and afterwards had a meal and our project meeting in the Hawes Inn, a hotel and public house made famous by Robert L.Stevenson in his novel ‘Kidnapped’. We were able to look at progress so far and the next stages of our project, in comfortable surroundings. tom pike
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Welcome Assembly Ednam held a welcome assembly for our visitors from France, Italy and Spain. We had planned to sing Scottish songs, and the Nursery had learned an Italian song for the occasion. As an activity during their visit to our school, our guests were asked to teach a song of their country to each of the classes. The Spanish worked with the nursery, the French with the Primary 1/2, the Italians with Primary 3/4/5 and more Spanish with the Primary 5/6/7 class. Everyone had a great time learning these songs and enjoyed meeting and working with teachers from our partner schools. The songs were also sung at the welcome assembly, and we thank all our European colleagues for their willing participation and superb results.
Project Activities Activities that we have been involved in this Term
Interview with a Sports Star
This term we have been finishing the leaflet about our local areas, and each partner brought a copy of their leaflet to the meeting in Scotland in April. A copy is also available on our blog.
Another activity we were working on was having an interview with a sports star, finding out what inspired them to take up sport and what they do to keep healthy. This activity is also ongoing as some schools have finished and others have still to finish.
Health Workshops At some point this term each of our partners was to hold a workshop or workshops about health and
A Traditional Game We were to choose a game and video pupils playing the game, and provide instructions. These were to be uploaded onto the blog and each partner could then download the games. Pupils of the partner schools could try the games out and upload a video of the pupils playing the partners’ games. So far some schools have uploaded instructions, but not video yet. The activity will be continued into next session.
healthy living. Some schools have finished this activity, and others will finish in the new term.
A Traditional Game All schools will stage an Olympic Games Sports Day at their school around September, and upload photos/video of the event onto our blog, which will end the Health/Sport activities of our project, until we look at healthy diet next year. The summer term has been a very busy term and it has not been possible to fully complete all the activities, as in previous terms. They will be completed in the new term, up to October, and before the new activities begin.
tom pike
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Scotland and France Video Conference At the beginning of the Comenius Week when teachers from our partner schools were visiting Scotland, a video conference was organised. The activity was one we had tried before, the 'Can you bring me..?' game. A pupil asks in French or English for a classroom item or some items, and the
other class, which has been formed into groups, listens and finds the objects. If they have understood well, and found the requested items, their group wins a point. The activity went well enough, but pupils tend to get over enthusiastic finding the items, which causes much excitement. The French teachers were able to experience their class from our perspective, and the activity was much enjoyed.
Leaflets About Our Areas
Each partner in our project developed earlier work done about ours schools, by getting information about our local areas.
Next Term’s Project Activities
interest there are around our schools. Pupils enjoyed researching and taking photos for this activity.
After completing any activities from before the summer break, our project begins with schools identifying areas of sustainability, and to share what we do in our schools, with our partners. We hope to identify good practice and ideas that we might adopt in our own schools. We will look at this area in more detail at our meeting in Spain, in November. Looking at participation in Eco Schools scheme.
We were then able to put all the information on a leaflet and make the leaflet available at the local tourist offices.
Copies of the leaflets can be downloaded from Our Comenius Blog at http://www.com3nius.eu
Information and photos give some basic idea of what places of
tom pike
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Other activities include a Winter Greeting by Video Conference. We did this very successfully last year and look to build on that again.
Introductions and Monsters in France and Scotland Scotland and France have been involved in various activities during video conferences. The older class in France and the Ednam class had an introductions activity. Each pupil would read their own details in the language they were learning, and the other group would listen. It involved a variety of vocabulary about age, family, where they live and so on. If someone thought they had that person’s description they came to the camera and said the name. The person would reveal themselves if correct. In the monster activity the monster was described in the local language, and the other school needed to listen carefully for body parts, numbers and colours. Both activities were completed over a few sessions, as we felt that shorter sessions and more often was more beneficial.
Dates of Next Meetings The date of the next meeting is 12th to 16th November 2012 and will take place in Spain, which will be our first meeting in that country. A return to France or possibly Italy has been proposed, for the following meeting. This will be decided at the meeting in Spain, after we have looked at progress and future work of the project.
Return Visit to France More Video Conferences Organised During a visit to Vandeins at the beginning of April I was able to take part a little, in English lessons, helping groups where possible. I was able to observe other lessons in French, maths, art construction, science. During English lessons I tried to help groups during activities and briefly asked the class simple tables questions. We were able to discuss dates for future video conferences between our classes. We have been unable to hold regular sessions because of other commitments, but organised a few dates up to June. Martial the technical advisor came into school while I was their, to make arrangements for the video conference when our partners visited Scotland, as he was organising the French class that day. My next visit to Vandeins and last of the session will be on 1st to 4th July
Pupil Playground Area Offline The newly launched Online Pupil Playground Games and Discussion Areas, started well, but the Games Area was found to have links to inappropriate websites. Although we had controls and filters in place, these links were out of our control. To avoid further problems these pupil areas have now been closed. The idea was good, and the discussion area in particular would have further developed links between pupils, following our email contact. tom pike
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