Enhancing language learning and employability skills in Craigroyston Community High School and Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Escuelas Pías, through the study and promotion of tourism in Edinburgh and Madrid Erasmus Project

Project Title

Enhancing language learning and employability skills in Craigroyston Community High School and Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Escuelas Pías, through the study and promotion of tourism in Edinburgh and Madrid

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Craigroyston Community High School is a school for a diverse student cohort of around 500 pupils aged between 11 and 18. It is in area of socio-economic deprivation, in the north of Edinburgh. Nearly all of the pupils live in SIMD 1 or 2 (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.) Despite the background, our pupils are have high aspirations and exemplify our motto ‘Believe and Achieve.’ We are a thriving languages department who believe in our pupils’ ability to achieve, and who have increased uptake in French year on year over the last five years, as well as continuously improving our learner’s academic results.

We have recently introduced Spanish as a second foreign language for S4-S6 which has proven popular and also increased in uptake over the last two years. As of session 2018-19 we will be teaching both French and Spanish from S1 onwards thanks to innovative timetabling, fully embracing the Scottish government’s 1+2 initiative (the new EU model for language learning in Scotland based on the mother tongue plus two additional languages.) Strategically it is now time for us to expand our European dimension and the key aim of this application is to build on the success of Spanish-teaching; forging lasting links with a school in Spain through an exciting and relevant project.

We intend to create an international link with Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Escuelas Pías, a school in Madrid, Spain, who is keen to partner with us on this project. This will be a long-term project running from September 2018 to August 2021. Through this link we hope to further motivate learners in both schools to study languages, using their foreign language to explore and promote tourism in the local area. The main focus of the project would be to collaboratively create tourist information about our cities. Pupils in both schools will get to know their cities, using partner organisations in the tourism industry whenever possible. They will work within classes on materials that promote european tourism, and will upload their work to a dedicated online ‘twinspace’ through e-Twinning technology. These materials may be written articles, photos with comments, podcasts or even video guides; pupils would be able to lead their own learning and make decisions about how best to present their thoughts. Through the collaborative eTwinning twinspace, students will be able to praise and give feedback to the participants in their partner city, enabling them to improve their work.

During the course of the project, three annual exchange visits will take place. These visits will have several key objectives:

1) Allow participants to meet their partners and improve their language-learning skills making connections and developing relationships.
2) Allow participants to broaden their cultural horizons by exploring another capital city of Europe.
3) Create collaborative workshops where participants can work on their tourism materials and experience activities run by business partners such as Apex Hotels.
4) Work towards the goal of creating a final project presentation, in a format of their choice, containing their best collaborative work.

This project meets three of the four key priorities of the Scottish National Improvement Framework and would therefore have a real impact on our learners:
* Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children — learners in our school often do not even have much knowledge of their own city, let alone that of another European country. This would broaden their horizons and increase their cultural and linguistic abilities; closing the gap between them and children from more privileged backgrounds. Our partner school would also have the opportunity to discover Scotland.
* Improvement in attainment — this would bring language learning out of the classroom and encourage genuine communication (both written and oral.) It would improve uptake and attainment in languages and equip learners in both schools with the skills to survive in an increasingly globalised world.
* Improved employability skills — we will be working with partners in the tourism industry in a variety of ways (interviews, production of tourist material etc) and this will open up our pupils’ eyes to the value of languages within that industry (and others.)

Craigroyston Community High School and Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Escuelas Pías are schools that seek to consistently improve our practices and the opportunities we can offer to our learners. If successful in this application, we will be able to fully develop this partnership and truly explore creative and relevant avenues for promoting language learning as a life skill essential to today’s global society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65994 Eur

Project Coordinator

Craigroyston Community High School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Escuelas Pías. Fundación Escolapias Montal