Our Colourful World Erasmus Project

Project Title

Our Colourful World

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: Inclusion – equity; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project ‘Our Colourful World’ involved five European countries (Uk – England, Italy, Greece, Finland and France) working in partnership. Our main aim was to address ‘Inclusion and Equity’ in our schools, through an exciting and challenging programme of activities and training. As a partnership, we were all committed, through a number of effective strategies, to meeting the specific needs of children in our organisations, regardless of social background, ethnicity, learning disabilities. We aimed to encourage all students to participate in the activities, to perform to the very best of their ability and to enjoy the activities. During transnational project meetings, we shared strategies for inclusion, used in our individual schools, through demonstrations and explanations. This work was collated, throughout the duration of the project, to form a collaborative policy document annex that can be integrated into each of our schools’ SEND’ policy document.

The aim of the project was to educate all participants in terms of developing intercultural knowledge and understanding through planned activities on themes including: architecture, music, dance, drama, stories, myths/legends, art/design/technology and filming. All outputs, in each of these areas of study, have been shared, presented to partners during transnational project meetings, collated, discussed, evaluated and finally produced as one collaborative product, for example, in the form of a DVD, CD, eBook/Magazine, Tutorial, Virtual Tour or Documentary. Pupils took ownership of the project activities, through which we specifically aimed to raise the profile of digital competences and foreign language learning in each of our schools. As most of our outputs were digital, we put in place training sessions to develop competences and confidence in this area for both staff and pupils. All our results have been uploaded to eTwinning; the virtual space that provides the tools for collaboration, presentation and evaluation.

As a partnership, we valued the importance of language learning as an essential skill in facilitating the development of inter-cultural understanding. Again, pupils took ownership of this aspect of the project by writing letters on a one-to-one basis and by creating tutorials in their own languages according to identified needs and of their relevance to the project content. Tutorials have also been uploaded on eTwinning, thus providing a teaching and learning platform for their peers in partner countries.
Some of our outputs, such as the art/technology activities that were based on the theme of architecture and our myths & legends ebook, were annotated in our five different languages. This enabled pupils to see easily, and compare languages, in terms of similarities and differences, as they are set out alongside each other. Through this, pupils were motivated to look at, and learn, new words and, in some cases, to consider the historical context of the buildings/architecture.

Our two planned multiplier events proved to be a very effective way of disseminating our project results as they reached a large audience of people both inside and outside of our organisations. In UK, the event impacted positively on our school staff, pupils, governors and visiting partners. The 6 week duration of the exhibition in a local public gallery meant that we reached many members of the public, some of whom offered us extended display opportunities.
The second multiplier event was very exciting as it included a public showing of our documentary; a significant output for our partnership in that it was the culmination of a number of challenging teaching, learning and training activities.

Overall, this has been a very exciting partnership involving a significant variety of innovative, creative and challenging project activities. It has impact positively on many people including those directly associated with our organisations and those who are not.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 165927 Eur

Project Coordinator

Crossgates Primary School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• NIPIAGOGEIO DREPANOU
• Istituto Comprensivo di Campli
• Latokartanon peruskoulu
• College_des_seize_fontaines