An artistic trip around Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

An artistic trip around Europe

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The project ” An Artistic Trip Around Europe” was focused on using art and music to provide both teachers and pupils new ways of teaching/learning in these fields.An exchange of good practices helped both subjects to get a better experience and improve their abilities. An analysis of the implementation of the curriculum in each country showed that we often put a big focus on hachieving good results in Language and Maths and not paying so much attention to other pupils abilities,specially the ones involved in Art and Music

The “Theory of Intelligences Multiples” by Howard Gardner was used for developing the project
The theory says that every child is good at some intelligence(verbal-linguistic,logical-mathematical, interpersonal, etc…)As Gardner,we believe that the purpose of schooling “should be to develop intelligences and to help people reach vocational and avocational goals that are appropriate to their particular spectrum of intelligences”

The main objectives for pupils were :
1. Improve the skills related to Arts and Music:the musical–rhythmic,the visual–spatial and the kinaesthetic intelligences.
2. Use English language as a common way to communicate and make pupils realize the importance of learning English.
3. Use ICT tools to integrate them in learning activities.
4. Raise awareness of European citizenship to our children ,broaden their horizons,reduce prejudices and get to know other cultures.

The main objectives for teachers were :
1. Share and improving new methods and techniques of teaching Art,Music and Dancing.
2. Create a teaching guideline as a source of lesson planning.
3. Improve English skills.
4. Use ICT in contextual situations and in both planning,learning/teaching/dissemination activities.

To develop this project five schools from five different countries became partners, these were:
– From Barcelona (Spain) : Josep Maria School. It’s a preprimary and primary multicultural school with 470 pupils, aged 3-12 and 32 teachers.
– From Savonlinna (Finland): Nätki Elementary with 10 teachers and 150 pupils from the 1st to 5th grade.
– From Grebkow (Poland): Henryk Sienkiewicz School with about 200 students, aged 5-13, a kindergarten and 25 teachers
– From Riga (Latvia): Valdis Zalitis School has about 500 pupils from the 1st to 6th grade and 40 teachers.
– From Vienna (Austria): Neue Mittelschule is located in a migrant district and is a rather small school with about 200 pupils and the
most of them (95%) don’t speak German as their native language.

The project involved more than 1000 people, including pupils from each school, teachers and families with 74 pupils having mobilities.

Different activities were scheduled related to different Art disciplines:painting,drawing,music, happenings,experimenting with materials,video creation… In addition the project provided pupils’ mobilities where they had a chance to work together in different workshops scheduled in different European countries. Methodologically mixing pupils of different countries in different workteams and using several and different techniques and materials provided richer experiences practising with Art and Music.

Carrying out the project, exposed students to other cultures and promoted their foreign language abilities,especially in English. The transnationality of the project allowed pupils and teachers to work with people from other European countries, so they could help each other and at the same time gain an awareness of European citizenship. By adding an European dimension to the project, students and teachers were able to work in a richer context widening their knowledge of Europe,its inhabitants and some of its cultural and artistic expressions (artists, songs, popular music…)

Beyond the products related to each planned activity there was a common product: a big canvas made with the effort of all partners,a collage which is an assemblement of different elements and materials to create a meaning that parallels the idea of Europe as a “collage” of different cultures with the aim of constructing European awareness. Our collage is a metaphor about joining different forces around Europe to make a common creation. Concerning the curricular contents we were expecting teachers to improve their teaching methods of Art and Music according to each country’s curriculum and pupils to improve their skills in Art and Music. At the same time the learning/teaching activities and experiencies were integrated in each country’s curriculum or activities plan.

We had both social and academic impact with this partnership.The main impacts were:
– Revising and improving the schools teaching methods by providing to all teachers meaningful activities and ways of teaching,so they have more resources
– Awaking and developing creativity and imagination
– The growth of a European citizenship awareness in both students and staff
– Improving language skills.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 107165 Eur

Project Coordinator

Escola Josep Maria Jujol & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Nätkin koulu
• Publiczna Szkola Podstawowa im. H. Sienkiewicza
• Rigas Valda Zalisa sakumskola
• NMS Staudingergasse 6, 1200 Wien