Exploring storytelling through nature; an oral and written form of education which spans all cultures Erasmus Project

Project Title

Exploring storytelling through nature; an oral and written form of education which spans all cultures

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Access for disadvantaged; Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions

Project Summary

This is a partnership between 5 partner schools from Croatia, Italy, Ireland, France and Germany. The first three partners have worked together in a previous project and wanted to do so again, to continue the friendship and exchange of good practice they have shared. The other two partners are relatively new to Erasmus, but have worked closely together in the past. Our schools vary in size from 40 pupils to nearly 1,000, but we share a passion about nature, literacy and proving to our students that every one of them can succeed,regardless of disadvantage, background or disability. The Irish school pupils are predominantly from the travelling community and all of the partner schools have a diverse school population,including a number of children with varying degrees of physical and educational disability. Our pupils range from 4 to 19 years old, but the children involved in the project range from 10 to 14 years. All partners are involved in outdoor education or environmental projects, and we firmly believe that using nature and the outdoors as a teaching tool helps pupils who do not thrive in classroom situations to succeed beyond all expectations.
We believe in social inclusion.We want to help address diversity and promote ownership of shared values, equality, including gender equality, and non-discrimination. We want to tackle discrimination, segregation, racism, bullying (including cyberbullying), violence and social exclusion, through education, training, and outdoor activities. The projects aims to foster the development of social, civic and intercultural competences, with children becoming more aware, and protective of their environment, and of the nature they see all around them. The skills they gain in doing the project, and in travelling on the mobilities, will give our pupils the self-confidence to succeed, not just in literacy, but in all the subject areas touched on throughout the project.
Through the innovative use of stories, as a teaching methodology, we want to promote literacy in a fun and engaging way, using nature and our environment as teaching tools.The curriculum areas of Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, Music, Dance, History, Geography, Art, English and oral language(public speaking) are all addressed in a fun and engaging way. This motivates children to learn in spite of any difficulties they may have, even if they do not thrive in the normal classroom setting. In this project, we are supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences, in order to foster employability and socio-educational and personal development, as well as participation in civic and social life. This includes language skills, critical thinking and creativity. We want to improve the quality and effectiveness of learning mobility experiences and use stories as effective and innovative teaching methodologies.The project also provides new approaches to reducing disparities in access to and engagement with digital technologies in formal and non-formal education. Many of our pupils do not have access to computers at home, but will learn valuable IT skills through this project, through activities like “Welcome to my school power-point presentations”, digital treasure maps and uploading to Twinspace. In this way, we hope to support educators and learners to use digital technologies in creative, collaborative and efficient ways. We especially want to ensure equal access to digital skills for girls. All schools will present dramas and will record these and upload onto twinspace. We will learn about our environment, food and nutrition. We will perform a musical denouncing junk food, and we will plant our own vegetables. We will create recipes and put them onto twinspace, thereby teaching valuable lessons on health and nutrition.
We also recognise the social and educational value of European cultural heritage, sharing our stories, myths and legends, our folk dances and music, our art and our history. The stories and folk music in our countries have many elements in common and this will help us to appreciate other cultures and promote respect for diversity. The products of our project- books, stories, videos, dramas, music, games etc will all be uploaded onto twinspace and will be shared on the results platform. This will provide a number of valuable and useful teaching resources for teachers and pupils all over the EU, and will remain long after the project ends. However, the biggest impact will be on the participants.Through the use of story and nature as an innovative and effective teaching methodology, our pupils will gain skills and confidence.They will make friends for life, experience cultures different to their own, and know that, regardless of gender or ability, or background, they are part of a wide European community. They will realise how much they have in common with pupils from partner schools, and that they are important, creative, successful young people, with a bright future ahead.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 145300 Eur

Project Coordinator

SN na hEaglaise & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Max-Planck-Gymnasium
• Collège Marie Curie Les Lilas
• Osnovna skola kraljice Jelene, Solin
• VIII ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO “VITTORINI”