"MY ROOTS BECOME OUR WINGS-TRAVEL AGENCY"

MR BOW -TA

My Roots Become Our Wings– Travel Agency Year1 , Issue 1

“Wings ...

NEWSLETTER

«My Roots Become Our Wings –Travel Agency” Erasmus + KA 229 2018-2020

to show you what can you become

The project ''My Roots become Our Wings - Travel Agency’’ aims to:

Roots…

increase awareness on the importance of the development of

to remind you

transversal skills and basic key competences in nowadays life and

where you are

specifically in school through the implementation of inclusive education and digital integration.The main idea: pupils are travel agents who aim

from!”

to increase awareness on local and European identity and cultural heritage

Index:

through

transversal practices.

Activities carried out in Austria

4



Activities carried out in Italy

4

Activities carried out in Poland

5

Interview with the Lithuanian coordinator

5

Reflections

6

use

skills,

integration First Joint train- 2-3 ing Staff meeting

the

of

digital

and

inclusive

Partners Dimotiko Napas

Sxoleio –Antoni

Agias

Tsokkou,

Agia Napa, Cyprus 

Volksschule St Peter Am Wimberg, St.Peter am Wimberg, Austria



Direzone DidatticaI Statale 2° Circolo "G. Cirincione, Bagheria, Italy



Vilkaviskio Salomejos Neries Pagrindine Mokykla, Vilkaviškis, Lithuania



Szkola Podstawow Nr 13 Im. Ken, Olsztyn, Poland



Școala Gimnaziala Nr. 9 „Nicolae Orghidan” Brașov, Romania

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My Roots Become Our Wings– Travel Agency

1st Joint training staff , Agia Napa , Cyprus

“Inclusive

schools are the ones that create the right conditions and give the same opportunities to all children,

regardless of nationality, religion, disability, learning needs or any other special circumstances of their lives”

The Primary School of Agia Napa - Antonis Tsokkou had the pleasure of hosting, as the coordinating country, the first joint staff training for ten teachers from European schools that will cooperate during the school years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, working on a joint European Erasmus+ KA2 (Strategic Partnerships in School Education) project, titled " My Roots Become Our Wings Travel Company! (MR BOW -TA)". The training meeting took place from Monday, October 29, 2018 until Friday, November 2, 2018.

The six European schools that established the MR BOW-TA project partnership are the schools from— Cyprus (coordinating country), Romania, Lithuania, ,Austria, Poland and Italy.

The MA BOW-TA project aims to deepen on good inclusive practices with respect to diversity, equity and social justice, through educational activities and visits, as well as exchanges of teachers and pupils, to help school communities become inclusive environments in practice and not just in theory. Inclusive schools are the ones that create the right conditions and give the same opportunities to all children, regardless of nationality, religion, disability, learning needs or any other special circumstances of their lives. In multicultural schools such as those participating in the MR BOW-TA project “every learner matters and matters equally” (UNESCO, 2017)! What the project aims to achieve is for all children (even those from disadvantaged backgrounds) to have an incentive to open their wings in order to achieve their

goals anywhere they live, in a United Europe, with the use of new technologies for digital competences, the promotion of social inclusion and commitment to quality Education for All and Intercultural Education (icebreakers/ energisers/ team-building activities), and the appreciation and promotion of everyone’s cultural heritage as being a unique and irreplaceable source of inspiration and motivation for progress and improvement (physical and virtual cultural tours).

Training on Day One of the joint staff training week was provided by Dr Lambri Trisokka (school teacher/academic researcher/KA2 project coordinator) and Mrs Elena Philippou (school teacher). The training was titled “Inclusive Teaching and Learning Practices for Inclusive School Communities” and consisted of the three Cycles of the 3D Cycle of Change (Diagnosis, Design, and Doing).

The training started with an activity called “The Privilege Walk” or else “Make Two Steps Forward if […]”.

Throughout the privilege walk, some statements were read by the facilitator and the participants were asked to take a step forward or backward based on theirresponses. ).This activity forced participants to confront the ways in which society privileges some individuals over others. The aim of the activity was to get participants to reflect on the different areas in their lives where they have privilege as well as the areas where they don't (teaching strategies/ activities to help children develop critical thinking Then, the participants sat in a semicircle in front of a big

screen, in order to be more attentive during training delivery. The Diagnosis Cycle aimed at informing the participants about the problem and discussing about it (different color, ethnicity, language, religion, culture, level of learning, and disabilities create inequalities). The participants watched three short-videos regarding (a) welcoming immigrant students, (b) helping immigrant students adjust to new schools, and (c) inclusive education for children with special educational needs and disabilities. A discussion followed, trying to understand the need for, and significance of inclusive and intercultural education.

Each participant shared experiences and good practices in inclusive teaching and learning with the team.

The Design Cycle aimed at reflecting on the best teaching and learning practices, and designing a plan for implementation. The participants selected the best icebreaking and energizer activities discussed earlier for including and engaging all individuals of a group in joint actions (at school/classroom level). Then, during the Doing Cycle they were divided into three groups and put the selected icebreakers/energizers in action, together with the Year 6 students of the school.

Year1 , Issue 1 Day Two was a four-hour training workshop that was titled “Social Inclusion Vs. Factor X”, aiming to deepen on social inclusion/exclusion factors and good practices for succeeding inclusion in action.

By the end of the training, the participants had a discussion on how to create a joint project INDEX, where useful material and best teaching and learning practices for Inclusion in Action will be mentioned.

On Day Three, students, with the help of their teachers, organised a cultural festival for the project partners, and their families. The cultural event,

which was titled “MY ROOTS BECOME OUR WINGS” bore a resemblance to the cultural heritage (history/customs/ traditions) of Cyprus, guided by the children themselves (Stations-Traditional Professions / Food / Games / Dances and Songs). All participants, students and teachers, both hosts and guests, experienced the cultural heritage of Cyprus and learned a lot about its history, customs and traditions in an enjoyable way!

Parents, recognising the significance of the knowledge of someone’s cultural heritage, asked for the cultural festival to be established as a yearly school event! It is worth mentioning that every host projectpartner country will organize a cultural festival for educational purposes! On the same day, the project partners had a meeting, in order to clarify and agree on every partner’s tasks and responsibilities, and also on the Project Logo Competition procedure.

Page 3 On Day Four, the project partners visited some of the seventeen classrooms of the school and interacted with the students, who prepared activi-

ties/material to share with their guests. One classroom talked about the cultural heritage of the district of Famagusta, another classroom presented the cultural heritage of Ayia Napa, and another produced a tour guide booklet for the guests, mentioning the top-rated historical monuments of Cyprus.

Year 1 students danced traditional dances and sang traditional songs with the guests.

The children of a year 2 classroom played a traditional game in the school yard and the project partners played with them! It was an enjoyable interactive day with the children of the school, a day that showed Inclusion in Action, as the school is multicultural (students from 28 different countries) and has also a Special Unit (for children with SEND). All children prepared something to show to the school’s guests! In the early afternoon, there was an educational excursion by bus, so that the guests visit some of the top-rated historical monu-

ments of Cyprus (Ancient Kourion, Paphos, Limassol) that the children of the school talked about earlier. The trip was a retrospective view of the Cypriot roots. Both the school teachers and the project part-

ners enjoyed a traditional Cypriot Night that was organised for the latter as a farewell dinner.

On the last Day (Five) of the joint staff training week, all teacher partners had the opportunity to attend (a) a 40minute EFL lesson with Mrs Elena Philippou’s class, a 40“All minute Robotics lesson with Mrs Stella Timotheou’s class participants, and (b) a 40-minuteTeaching Greek as a Second Language students and lesson with Dr Lambri Trisokka’s class, where all three teachers, both teachers work in a very inclusive and interactive way for hosts and the benefit of all children, regardless their ethnicity, languests, guage, or SEND. The project partners also had the opporexperienced the tunity to visit the School's Special Unit (SU) and discuss cultural heritage good practices with the SU teachers on how to include of Cyprus and vulnerable groups (children of immigrant/refugee families / learned a lot children with special educational needs and disabilities) in about its a school/classroom’s activities.

During the last hour of the history, school day, the host school’s customs and head teacher, Mr. Georgios Konstantinou, the project coortraditions in an dinator and the project partners gathered in the head enjoyable way” teacher’s office to reflect on the training week they had in Cyprus. Certificates of Attendance were awarded to all participants.

All partner teachers were delighted with the hospitality, but also with the smooth functioning of the Primary School of Ayia Napa-Antonis Tsokkos in Cyprus that tries to be inclusive in all aspects of school life in practice and not just in theory. They also gave a very positive feedback to the hosts for meeting the objectives of the project successfully. The next See video here: teacher-exchange meeting will https://drive.google.com/file/ be held in Austria in March d/1M0Ad1h_syij_2l63idoz8CEtcj c6Q7xs/view?usp=sharing 2019.

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My Roots Become Our Wings– Travel Agency

Activities carried out in Austria

“People around schools involved in Erasmus+ Programmes benefit of the

September 2018: Project introduction to the teachers, students and parents –in a parents representative meeting October 2018: Logo Competition: students produce project logos –3 selected logos are taken to Cyprus for the competition Project meeting in Cyprus –short—term joint staff training: educational inclusion and social cohesion as topic. Logos are voted online –the winner is a logo from Sicily. Students also vote for an Austrian school logo November 2018: Students produce Christmas cards in various forms and they were sent to all partner schools in December.

December 2018: Setting up a corner in the entrance hall of our school –Erasmus corner

and local travel agency corner where students will decorate with posters of places of interest they will get from the local tourism office, presenting leaflets and brochures there January 2018: Students of 3rd grade will visit a travel agency in our regional town and learn how a travel agency works

positive climate it

Activities carried out in Italy

brings, become more aware of European issues and,

finally, more sensitive to people needs and conditions.”

The 16th of October our “MR BOW-TA” has been presented officially to the Community at our school. Our headteacher invited schools’ representatives, the Mayor and the Council member for Education of Bagheria, teachers and parents to know our idea of Europe through inclusion.

After a short speech introducing Erasmus+ Programme, the headteacher stressed the centrality of lifelong learning, whose starting point at Primary

school represents an unforgettable opportunity for pupils. The contact person talked of the project’s structure, showing the assembly not only its roots in long-lasting relationships but also the diffrent aspects of the multilateral partnership, giving a brief summary of the activities and mobilities. She highlighted how people around schools involved in Erasmus+ Programmes benefit of the positive climate it brings, become more aware of European issues and, finally, more sensitive to people needs and conditions. In the same week, students from class four and five were supposed to enter the project heart and meaning through an amazing activity: draw the project Logo using their favourite technique. First they discussed on the title to find the right implication of these profound words.

All of them enjoyed the contest, by creating several logo hoping theirs was the best one!!! Only sixteen were chosen among one hundred… to be brought to Cyprus meeting

Year1 , Issue 1

Page 5

Activities carried out in Poland In Poland, the first semester was devoted to knowing our roots and understanding what they give us. Our country celebrated a 100

anniversary of Independence. It was an opportunity to talk about our freedom, heritage, our roots. Also, we created a gallery of posters during history projects about our city, Olsztyn. During classes we learned the most

important about our project partners’ countries too and created an Erasmus+ corner in the hall for everyone to see.

Students, teachers and parents can read about the project’s goals and future plans.

In December we prepared Christmas cards for our partners and created a gallery of those we received. It was a pleasure to exchange wishes among new friends.

Finally we started learning about how travelling teaches us new things. The students began to learn how the travel agency works and

in January will visit a real one. In the meantime we started to learn how to plan a good travel.

During science and geography classes our students started to create projects about the most popular history and nature spots in our project partners’ and will soon share the effects.

“I definitely liked everything. I was deeply impressed by the

Interview with the Lithuanian Coordinator Dziugas Piliukaitis, the 7th grade student, took an interview from Irada Miltinienė, the transnational project „My roots become our wings:travel agency“ coordinator in Vilkaviskis Salomeja Neris basic school, who participated in short-term joint staff training activities in Cyprus during students‘ autumn holidays and brought home unforgettable memories.

Dziugas: Was it your first visit to Cyprus?

Irada: No, it wasn‘t but I can tell you that it was the best, most impressive visit to Cyprus for me ever.

Dziugas: How many people participated there and were they all adults?

Irada: 13 people came from 5 European schools, mostly, the headteachers and coordinators. The first meeting is the most important as all the activities, project goals and the final products are discussed.

However, there were lots of students from Dimotiko scholeio primary school and they were very hospitable, smart and friendly.

Dziugas: What did you

like most about the school, teachers and students there?

Irada: I definitely liked everything. I was deeply impressed by the students‘ skilfulness which they demonstrated while presenting their traditional arts, wedding traditions, dances and songs. They were really enjoying that. I felt how proud they were of their own country, its history and culture, with their language. They seemed to be involved in all project activities, they presented us their works, greeted us in our native languages, they looked really happy and safe-one big multicultural family. I felt really excited when I was watching the

lesson of an English teacher Elena. I learned a lot of things for myself to use in my own lessons.

What I‘m really sure about that I‘ve seen the elements of social inclusion and nonformal education in practice. And now I know how to use them and how to integrate those elements into my work.

Dziugas: Thanks a lot for sharing your impressions.

Irada: You‘re welcome.

students‘ skilfulness which they demonstrate d while presenting their

traditional arts, wedding traditions, dances and songs”

My Roots Become Our Wings– Travel Agency

Reflections Jolanta Okuniewska, member of the Polish team ”Meeting in Cyprus was a moment of reflection for me. A reflection about methods of teaching young students and relations between me and them. I was able to observe lessons and the event with the whole school community. I learnt that I we should try to involve parents in our school life more often than we use to do now. I must say that I am impressed with teachers, they cooperate and help each other all the time.

While playing with older students I was thinking that we should also start playing simple games with teenagers in our school. It reduces stress and improve student’s behavior.

Maria Assunta D'Aleo, Italy My second time in a sunny and welcoming place full of friends: that’s Cyprus experience. New school, new teachers, pupils and parents but the same hardworking, competent and caring friend to meet: our coordinator Georgios Konstantinou. All of the planned activities have enriched my knowledge and my heart. The more you know this multicultural, exotic and at the same time anchored to the past island, the more you feel in love with her. Maybe for me it’s easy to say that, I come from a so similar island and culture that I feel at home there. I touched with my hands how Cypriots students and “from everywhere-pupils” live harmoniously in Ayia Napa school and I really appreciated that, because this is inclusion. Only a little big thorn in my soul remains: the issue that afflicts this land and its people, divided in a bogus freedom with the silent deceiving “approval” of Europe. I cannot accept the pain of my friends when they tell that. My hope is a true peace for them, for Europe.

Margit and Andrea from Austria Arrival on the 27th October in Agia Napa On the 28th a very nice welcome ceremony at the DIMOTIKO SCHOLEIO AGIAS NAPASANTONI TSOKKOU. Very interesting staff trainings about inclusion and Index Sightseeing tours at Thalassa museum and to famous tourist spots in Cyprus as well as to ancient historical places like Paphos and the theatre Kurion.

A very nice festival was taking place on the 31st – children were singing, dancing, playing theatre and people were showing traditional handicraft of Cyprus.

It was a perfect organized meeting with every detail being very interesting and full of information for all of us. Thanks a lot to all who helped to organize it!”

Cornelia Melcu, project coordinator of the Romanian team: ”I really enjoyed the learning event attended in Cyprus! It was so nice to meet again my old friends and partners and meet new teachers! I liked best the English lesson attended and run

by Elena Philippou: great teaching methods and so warm collaborative climate… Then, I was impressed by the ceremony were all the classes from Primary School of Agia Napa - Antonis Tsokkos were involved, together with the teachers, parents and community members. Finally, what I brought back to our school was the collection of ice breakers we had been practiced during the trainings. I am pretty sure our Erasmus+ project ”MY ROOTS BECOME OUR WINGS-TRAVEL AGENCY” will be a success because of the added value each team brings to the partnership. Thank you, Cypriot team and Georgios Konstantinou for your warm welcoming and unique meeting!”

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Camelia Leru, head teacher of NICOLAE ORGHIDAN School from Brașov, Romania “The first meeting of the project "”MY ROOTS BECOME OUR WINGS-TRAVEL AGENCY”, was a real success. The warmth and hospitality of my colleagues in Cyprus, the way they organized their work was impressive. I left with the desire to share with my colleagues the examples of good practice found here (the special activities with the children, the festival in which the whole community was involved, the trainings run by Renos, Lambri, Elena, the warm way they addressed to the audience). We have discovered a vibrant and welcoming school where students are valued and motivated for study and development. I am convinced that the project will be a success with such a team and such a debut. Thanks to the Cypriot team and Georgios, an example of a manager who demonstrated involvement and dedication