SCHOOLS´PRESENTATION
UNITED KINGDOM
Raysfield Infants’ is situated in a semi-‐rural setting on the outskirts of Bristol and serves the local area of Chipping Sodbury. The vast majority of pupils come from families of white British backgrounds where both parents work to support their lifestyle. A significant number of children live in situations where there has been a breakdown in relationships between parents. The school has a broadly average number of pupils with special educational need, although percentages can vary from year to year. Although need is varied a large number are concerned with poor on entry speech and language skills leading to delay in early reading and writing acquisition. For many children, physical, personal, social and emotional skills are underdeveloped. We share Governor meetings annually with the juniors and both schools have identified community cohesion as an area to develop in order to raise pupil aspiration and develop awareness of the diversity of the world in which they live. The school has achieved Healthy School Status, Active Sportsmark and OPAL gold award for play development. Three years ago, the school evaluated provision under the ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes. Our vision was to create exciting learning environments both indoors and outdoors in order to promote learning and achievement in a healthy, safe environment. We also recognised the need to provide children with opportunities to see out and beyond the local environment and planned ways to promote their understanding of cultural diversity, through language acquisition and partnerships. Now in our third year, we have seen a rise in standards and achievement and are currently at the stage of creative curriculum development to further enhance the use of the outdoors. We are working towards a model whereby we can include more of the children’s own interests and ideas.
We value the opportunity to: -‐ Develop staff and pupil horizons through this unique opportunity to work together on a collaborative project -‐ Develop and expand the use of IT to enhance teaching and learning, -‐ Build on the schools research based ethos whereby children and adults are all on a learning journey -‐ Support the development of community cohesion, in particular children’s understanding of their place within the European Community.
FRANCE
Our school, Saint Joseph de Tivoli, is located in Bordeaux, a town in the South West of France, listed in a UNESCO world heritage, close to the sea and well-‐known for its vineyards. Saint Joseph de Tivoli is a catholic private school, which has a contract with the government and under Jesuit guardianship. It welcomes by majority children from families social-‐culturally privileged classes. However the calculation of the school fees is done contingent on the income of the parents which enables the welcome of more modest families. The school consists of a nursery school, a primary school, a secondary school, from 11 to 17, and it offers as well post graduate classes. We have 2000 children aged from 4 to 20. The project”my world, your world, our world” concerns the nursery and the primary school, so 326 children aged from 4 to 10 and 17 teachers. We welcome 58 children in 2 nursery classes, 11 children in CLIS (children intellectually deficient) and the others are in primary classes. We are very much devoted to a global vision of a child course, keeping track and to the dialogue between all the teachers. Moreover, a Comenius project is launched in the secondary school. Saint Joseph de Tivoli is one of the oldest schools in Bordeaux and we are currently building a new HQE school (High Environmental Quality -‐ BREEAM In United Kingdom) which leads us to work on the sustainable development with the pupils.
Pupils start to learn English from 4 years old; they can choose a second language (Spanish or German) from 8 years old. We are fortunate to have an access to an IT room where children have their own computer and benefit from our IT consultant’s advices. From nursery onwards, pupils practice judo one hour per week and have access to the school sports facilities. A wide range of activities is offered to the children: cultural and musical activities; experimental workshops. We aim to encourage a broader understanding of different values, like respect, tolerance, sharing, care, open-‐ mindedness. It results in a continuous interiority project, and the animation within the school of an association called “Tivoli Sans Frontière” (Tivoli without borders) which enables older children to contribute in the building of schools in Africa. We are very demanding and willing to discover different ways of teaching, different ways of teaching, different ways of learning from other European countries. We care for sharing values, and for mutual benefit from differences.
SWEDEN
Satra Brunns preschool is located in Sala Municipality. There is a small village close to Sala, Västerås and Avesta. Our preschool is located near the forest and nature, which we use daily. Preschool is governed by pre-‐school staff directly under the leadership of principal. All together we have eight personnel working during the day. We have our own chef who cooks meals mostly from scratch, which we cherish very much. Our curriculum is issued by the government. The curriculum guides the kindergarten and thus fulfills the requirements of the State. It also expresses the demands and expectations that children and parents have on us. We want the children to be safe, reflective, feel joy in their daily lives, feel involved and able to influence. We work with a conscious attitude among children and adults, by dividing the children into smaller groups where we have been able to see and talk to each child. By this, we have noticed that the children have developed the ability to take responsibility for their actions, to express their thoughts and opinions, allowing them to get an opportunity to influence their situation (everyday). By changing our approach to children's learning, children have got to come with their own proposals on how they think their learning will take. We are also working to document every child learning to show their development. We believe it is important that parents get a glimpse into their children's development and stay in the nursery. Through dialogue and interviews, we document in the portfolio, children, reflections and experiences. We work extensively with both language and free-‐ range and think that both are important and necessary for children's continued development. Through our cooperation with our partners in the various countries participating in the project, we see a great opportunity to immerse ourselves in our learning and hence widen the children's learning and understanding, both for language and free-‐range but also for our municipality, our country and European countries. Whilst we also appreciate that staff have the opportunity to develop and enhance knowledge of IT, managing various ways to communicate, work with digital cameras and camcorders etc. We will also gain knowledge of and about the various countries' activities, how to teach to children in different ways with respect to language and play.
HUNGARY
Our Nursery School is situated in the southern part of the town in a quiet greenbelt area. It is part of a big Child Care Centre where there is a Créshe, a Speech Therapy Centre, a Home for the Elderly and the Disabled. The Nursery School can be found far from noisy crowded streets and roads in a beautiful greenbelt area. It was built in the 1970s. There are three classrooms for the learning teams. There is a gym in the building, a staff room and a changing room for the staff, one special training room for skill development activities with special needs children, a surgery, a laundry and a bathroom for the staff. Our staff are well aware of the fact that Every Child Matters even if they are different, some are mentally and physically handicapped, or are of special needs children. So, we tried to find a pedagogical programme which is flexible, is full of life, expresses the teachers’ creativity, and develops children’s skills. This way, we found the Activity Centered Pedagogical and Educational Programme which we have adapted according to the specialities of the institution. This programme can be successfully used to integrate children with special needs into the main stream of our Nursery. Our staff ’s main aim is to provide love, comfort and safety for children when they first come to our institution, and to deepen these feelings during the three years of their stay here. In our Institution, 20% of the children regularly receive Child Care Support from the Local Government. These children come from families where their living standard is very low because of the parents’ finacial situation, or the low education. We permanetly examine the parents’ social and financial background, and give them information about the support system. With the Comenius project we would like to broaden our horizon on European Dimensions, learn about other cultures, traditions, living conditions, pedagogical and educationl activities within and outside the curriculum. It is always good to learn the best practice from other nations, institutions, exchange ideas. We would like to teach our children to respect people from other countries, their language, culture, etc. We must teach our children that we all in the world are inhabitants of a ’Global Village' we should be proud of , love and take care of.
SPAIN
Ceip Maestro Juan Apresa is situated in Arcos de la Frontera, Cádiz.Spain. Arcos is a village of 32.000 inhabitants and it is near the mountains and the nature. We have infants (175) and primary students (around 300) in our School. The School is divided into 2 buildings and the principal lead both of them. The school has its own dining room where some students eat their lunch everyday at 14.00 o'clock. The majority of students come from a new area of the village where our School is well recognized. Juan Apresa is a bilingual School where we teach as much as we can both languages(Spanish/English). We also have two assistants who help in our teaching in a daily basis. We are very concern about the second language therefore we are trying to keep engage within the European way of life and teaching that´s why the school has been previously involved with Comenius and other Bilingual activities. Being in a Comenius project would be a great opportunity to increase our students awareness and motivation towards their competencies and to exchange information with our colleagues in Europe. We would like to create an exciting environment where students play the main role. We do believe we can gain a lot of things from this exchange and we are all looking forward to starting our new world. For more information about our school do please visit our website at: www.maestrojuanapresa.com