Come Reach Europe And Create Talent In Our Nations! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Come Reach Europe And Create Talent In Our Nations!

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: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Our 6 schools, Collège Elsa Triolet in France, Koivusaaren Koulu in Finland, Mustafa Kemal Ortaokulu in Turkey, Instituto de Ensenanza Secundario el Yelmo in Spain, Istituto Comprensivo Statale San Giorgio in Italy and the Observatory School in the UK are all secondary schools, are all facing challenges to open up their students to Europe as they are located in rural areas with fewer opportunities to open up to outstanding, but also to offer quality extra curricular activities. Indeed, most of us have a high percentage of students with heavy learning difficulties: SEN students, low achieved students, refugees, around 1000 of them if we add them all. As experienced educators, we often notice students don’t understand the rationale of certain subjects, find it too difficult to learn new things and progress. Most school curriculums focus on lists of skills to attain, and we fail to understand why some students will achieve some but won’t achieve others. We ask students to learn, we teach them how to learn but we often notice that when they have managed to do so, once the assessment is over, a few months or years later, little remains from what they’ve learnt. We got inspiration from Neuroscience studies and realized we remember what we experience, that we can’t learn nor learn to learn if our social background doesn’t allow us to access knowledge This could explain why students from privileged backgrounds can learn and remember better what they’ve learned : their world allows them to reactivate outiside school what they have learned inside. We do believe this project helped them understand that school can be a place where they can find self-fulfillment, where the main goal isn’t to merely answer the expectations of society but to find who they are to understand what goals they wish to reach, and how to reach them.. This project helped schools to afford implemeting new activities, go beyond regular school curriculums and help students find their talent , to develop further the different subjects and skills taught at school, and explore new types of activities and projects. Thanks to the use of innovative ICT tools, peer work and cross disciplinary activities we included and encouraged all our students to try new activities, without fear of failure. To achieve this goal, we articulated our project around four main themes which promoted Communication and ICT skills, Intercultural European Awareness, Citizenship and entrepreneurship, Creativity and self-fulfillment. Thanks to the use of innovative ICT tools, peer work and cross disciplinary activities, we trusted our students to become more self-confident about their own talents and skills, and more comfortable with the time spent at school. Thus, we created a third space, a virtual european class thanks to a twinspace, with the eTwinning plateform. It allowed our students to collaborate to create a common website, online magazines,art exhibitions, launch campaigns , step into action with local associations, make school a safer and happier place by analyzing their social media habits, become aware of their status as Europeans, of their common values and culture. During mobilities, they celebrated Safer Internet Day, Europe Day, Volunteer Day and World Art Day in order to show all their talent and what they have learned thanks to the project. These mobilities allowed to open up further our schools by involving the local teams, staff, families and students who thus had a chance to perceive better the importance of the activities we led online, and be involved even if they didn’t benefit from a mobility. Thus, and our evaluations statistics prove it; our schools were able to fight early school leaving, school demotivation but also allow our students to consider long term schooling, and the importance to carry on their studies as far as possible. Moreover, as our schools are located in rural or semi rural areas, we realized that this project helped our students to open up to other cultures, and fight their bias. Indeed, Europe is still a vague notion, often seen through the economic side. By collaborating with European students and learning about their culture, we helped build bridges between our countries and establish a longlasting relationship. Thanks to this project, we helped our students, but also their families, become better achieved European citizens. The pandemics of course disrupted the end of the project but, nevertheless, thanks to eTwinning plateform we were able to carry on our activities and even organize a virtual mobility which involved more students than expected. The impact of this project was so strong that it was decided to carry on other forms of partnerships between our schools.

Project Website

https://creactionproject.weebly.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 138502,48 Eur

Project Coordinator

Collège Départemental Elsa Triolet & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Mustafa Kemal Ortaokulu
• Istituto Comprensivo Statale San Giorgio
• Koivusaaren koulu
• The Observatory School
• INSTITUTO DE ENSEÑANZA SECUNDARIA EL YELMO