Now that you have read about our project, here’s some information about our schools.
ICS Giorgio Perlasca, Rome, Italy
IC Perlasca is a Primary and Lower Secondary school in Rome with pupils aged 6-14. It is made up of 4 units in Pietralata, one of Rome’s suburbs developed after the ‘30s and currently opening up to greater social diversity. Besides pupils coming from favourable family contexts, Perlasca hosts pupils belonging to problematic backgrounds. Also, pupils from migrant families, mostly from Eastern Europe, Asia and South America, have more recently joined the school population. There are 8% special needs pupils integrated in ordinary classes and supported by specially trained teachers. The school’s educational project gives particular emphasis to the development of a healthy and peaceful learning environment to favour the integration of all types of diversities (social, cultural, linguistic).
Special attention is given to initial and in-service training to provide teachers with the right tools to tackle major challenges (mixed-skill classes/pupils at risks of social exclusion and school failure). Perlasca has been carrying out research on didactics in cooperation with higher education institutions and has been recently appointed Polo Formativo di Ambito (in charge of the teacher training plan for 35 schools) and regional coordinator for a national project on science and technology didactics. The school is also an authorised centre for trainee teachers. Perlasca has a long experience in European programmes. It has taken part in several Comenius projects as partner and coordinator for over 15 years, and it is currently involved in the final stages of the METAMINDS KA2 partnership, whose intellectual outputs consist of a training protocol for teachers and a set of pupils’ activities to build learning-to-learn skills. MELT will be a productive way to further extend the research started with the former project and it will help fine-tune some of the previously developed tools through the exchange of best practices with new partners.
Being part of an Erasmus+ partnership is especially important to help teachers and pupils widen their often too narrow perspectives, learn to value and welcome differences, and experience the meaning of European dimension through peer contact. It is also the most productive way to exchange knowledge and practice in teaching and learning and to foster progress in school education. A large team of teachers from primary and lower secondary school is involved in the planning and development of European projects at Perlasca. The team is led by the headteacher, who is also a researcher in pedagogy and has published various volumes on learning and teaching strategies. The contact person has a long experience of international cooperation and has been coordinating several European partnerships, including METAMINDS. Thanks to the fact that a large and experienced group of staff is involved in European projects, it will be easy to replace those more directly in charge of the current application, should any problem arise.
Agrupamento de Escolas nº1 de Serpa, Serpa, Portugal
The Agrupamento de Escolas nº 1 de Serpa is a primary and lower secondary school group with kindergarten, with around 950 pupils, aged between 3 -15 years old, and 100 teachers. The main school is located in Serpa, a small town in the southeast of Portugal. The other schools in the group are located in different villages in an area of 20 km around the town of Serpa. Besides pupils coming from favorable family contexts, the school hosts pupils who come from problematic backgrounds.
Most of the students come from families of medium/low socio-economic status and poorly educated. A great number of students’ mothers are unemployed. Some students are migrants from Brazil, Romania, China and Cape Verde, and a large and increasing number of pupils belong to the gypsy ethnic group. This group of pupils have a particular perspective of education and society in general, which demands from the school, every day, different answers to face situations such as early school dropout or school failure. The school also hosts students with special education needs, who take part in ordinary classes with the help of qualified teachers, and hosts a multi-disability unit. Priority values such as responsibility, autonomy, tolerance, respect, solidarity and self-esteem are very important to the school. The school has a long experience in European projects, within the framework of Erasmus+, LLL Programme and previous ones, as an important strategy to counteract isolation and promote European citizenship as well as foster the development of innovative strategies and contexts.
Being part of an Erasmus+ partnership is especially important to help teachers and pupils widen their perspectives, learn to value and welcome differences, and experience the meaning of European dimension through peer contact. It is also the most productive way to exchange knowledge and practice in teaching and learning and to foster progress in school education. The school is very interested and is looking for training in the area addressed by the project, as a way to help teachers and students to achieve new working competences to foster success in education. The coordinator of the Portuguese partner has a long experience in Comenius and Erasmus+ projects, as coordinator and partner, in the areas of school management, quality in schools, cultural and artistic education and environmental education. He also has skills and expertise in school management, pedagogical orientation, design and visual culture. Alongside him, there’s a team of teachers who are very involved in the field of the project, with considerable experience in previous European projects. In case the coordinator leaves the school in the next school year, he will be replaced by one of the teachers who are part of the project team. The school has considerable expertise in the areas of visual arts, sports and music, and runs a Drama Club. These areas should be addressed to the project and benefit from the project activities and outcomes.
Hillview School for Girls, Tonbridge, UK
Hillview School for Girls is an all-ability, single-sex academy for pupils aged 11 to 18. Between 11 and 16, pupils study in preparation for national GCSE exams and many stay on after this to study A Levels or BTEC qualfications in our Sixth Form, where we also have male students. In total, there are around 1200 students with 250 of these being in the Sixth Form. We also have about 100 teaching staff members. Having previously worked on the METAMINDS Erasmus+ project, the school is keen to continue to develop expertise in metacognition and meta-reflexive pedagogical strategy. The school would particularly like to develop strategies for inclusivity for certain groups, such as pupil premium and those with mental health issues, who would benefit from additional teaching and learning strategies which focus on the impact of emotions within the classroom. This project is of interest as students and teachers increasingly struggle with emotional interactions within an environment which is often stressful and we feel that it is important to equip our teachers and learners with strategies to negotiate their emotional responses and experiences to maximise their potential. As we have begun to do with the METAMINDS Project, we would like to continue to disseminate findings and strategies across our school and beyond through professional development training events, developing our school’s reputation for progressive and high quality teaching. We also feel that the direction of this project, in its focus on Performing and Visual Arts outcomes is well suited to the specialisms of Hillview School. The Project Coordinator who oversees the current METAMINDS Erasmus+ project will continue to oversee the MELT project, with support from teachers who have been involved in the current research and senior leadership, including the deputy head who line manages the current project. The school will advertise and interview for a new Coordinator from existing staff should this be necessary during the period of this project. As a Performing and Visual Arts specialist academy, we have expert teachers in departments for Art, Drama, Music and Dance. This will benefit the project as the outcomes of mobilities is intended to be expressed through an artistic medium and we will be well placed to lead the student collaboration to develop these outcomes. Additionally, our teachers will have outstanding activities and strategies which can be adapted and contribute to the activities developed by the project to explore reflection on emotion across all subjects.
Mater Boni Consilii St. Joseph Paola, Paola, Malta
Mater Boni Consilii St. Joseph School Paola is an all girls Church School situated in the southern part of the island. The students’ provenance is from all over Malta but the majority come from the south.
The school caters for students from Kinder 2 to Senior 2 i.e from 4- 13 yrs of age (K2- Grade7). The students total to 215. The teaching staff is all females. The school is led by a lay headmaster. The teaching staff consists of 18 teachers and LSE’s with various levels of expertise and teaching experiences ranging from Early Childhood to Middle School up to Form 2 level. The school tries to include those students with different academic abilities as well as focus on different skills other than the academic ones mostly through Music. The school is motivated to join this project to continue sharing the sharing of good practices and pedagogies between different countries. The Head of School Dr. Kenneth Vella will be the key person overseeing the running of the project together with his teaching staff, as he has considerable experience in this field by having lead another two projects prior to this. Apart from his experience, he is also the Mediterranean Representative for Learning Scoop Finland. Through the sharing of good practices that have been observed in Finland the participating teachers and educators will be able to share and transmit further to other teachers.
Kaunas Senamiestis progymnasium, Kaunas, Lithuania
Kaunas Senamiestis progymnasium is located in the center of Kaunas – the second largest city of Lithuania with over 352 thousand inhabitants. It is a basic education institution which includes primary (1st – 4th forms) and 1st part of Lower Secondary (5th – 8th forms) education programme with about 600 pupils and 80 teachers working. As the main school building is very small we share facilities with Kaunas „Ausra“ gymnasium. The pupils of the school belong to families of different socio – economic status. There are pupils that have one of their parents working abroad, that have divorced parents or are raised by the lonely mothers or fathers. Also, a number of pupils with special education needs is increasing. Our school aims at educating tolerance and including all pupils into school‘s social and educational life, by raising their motivation and self-esteem. We seek for parents cooperation as well. Special attention is given to sneering and violance problems among children.
Our school runs different projects related to this topic. On the other hand, our pupils participate in city events, take part in different olympiads, competitions, projects and show very high results.
Traditional school‘s feasts are: 1st September day, Harvest day, Advent Afternoons, National Commemoration Days (13th January, 16th February, 11th March), School leaving feast and other.Sport days and different sport competitions are also very popular among pupils. There is a big choice of after-school activities as well. Pupils can choose drama, sport, dance, music, art and other. There is a school choir that takes part in different contests and show up in school events. Or Music and Art teachers are professionals not only in a pedagogical field but also as professional musicians and artists. They could highly contribute to this project. Usually English teachers are in charge of international school projects (due to the project language). Any of them could take over a role of a key person. Participating in this project would put our basics of education into a European context.
We hope that this project could educate our pupils and teachers in other ways of learning and teaching that will lead to strengthening meta reflexive competences and ensure personal and professional well – being.
Xalbador Kolegioa, cambo-les-bains, Basque Country
In the heart of the Northern Basque Country, in the South West of France, our school is part of Seaska Federation which regroups primary, secondary and one sixth Form schools. Our schools are all Basque speaking schools. Basque is the language used to teach, communicate between pupils, adults and parents. All our students are fully speakers of Basque: they try to use it as much as possible in their everyday life and in their activities as well. All the projects we build are meant to promote the Basque identity and culture to make them become Basque citizens. Our school is a secondary school and counts 319 students aged between 11 and 15. We are a mixed non-religious school and we try to be an active member of our Basque Community. The pupils are coming from a wide area around Cambo-les-Bains: 18 different school buses come every day to school. We are offering a wide range of diverse activities aiming at developing Basque culture: playing Basque sports (such as pilota – smashing a ball with their bare-hands), pala (smashing a ball with a sort of wooden racket), singing (with the school choir), dancing, playing music (midday activity), circus, drama. All these activities are meant to make them feel that Basque language is not only the language they use at school, in the school subjects but they can transmit it elsewhere as well.
Moreover, our educational system is based on mentoring and peer-tutoring among the different levels: within the tutor group, different ages are mixed to favour the support between each other. This vertical tutoring system enables excellent relationship between peers but it also empowers the students with confidence as they have all trust in their teachers and can ask them anything for help. Like our head is saying to our new comers, our students enter our school as child and they live it as a citizen. The school has got no experience of such European experience, but its co-ordinator has been Comenius and Erasmus+ co-ordinator. So she will bring her expertise to the school in order to make a fruitful partnership with the other schools. The ethos of the school is keep the Basque language strong, but a minority language and culture also needs to have its place within a wider European context. Such a project would certainly open the school and its students and avoid isolationism. The staff is also willing to develop its skills in order to support the development of its students in becoming successful adults in a changing world while keeping their culture and identity strong.
The school has got many strengths, but offers an interesting and powerful Basque choir. The teachers and the pupils are willing to build on this and share their expertise with the partners’ schools. The school is part of a group of schools united in the Seaska federation, and in case the actual co-ordinator is moved to a different one, she will still remain in the federation and will be able to continue in the partnership.
MELT | Erasmus + Project 