Roots and Wings Erasmus Project

Project Title

Roots and Wings

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Our Roots and Wings (R.A.W.) project’s objective for the coming years is twofold:
– The first goal is linked to this year’s publication of the new programmes for primary and lower secondary education, requiring schools to be more ‘caring’, by placing pupils in the centre of their learning.
Initiative, responsibility, cooperation and engagement are the key words that caught our attention in these new programmes and that have motivated us to think of and create this new Erasmus+ project.
– The second goal is based on the lack of engagement, or even the passivity of our pupils with regards to their learning trajectory.
This observation unfortunately is often accompanied with a lack of engagement from the side of the pupils’ parents in the school career of their children.
Our school, which has been involved for a number of years already in European Comenius and Erasmus+ projects (our future school project for 2015-2017 clearly illustrates this, cf. annex), wishes to reflect, together with the local lower secondary school Pierre Mendes France, on ways that would enthuse pupils once again about their learning process!
This link with the secondary level is essential if we want our children to succeed in the long run.
This European project starts from the need to make fundamental learning more lively and motivating, and tries to find answers to some essential questions:
– Do our lessons respond to the needs of our pupils, are they in line with their experiences and do they fit in with their intelligence profile?
– Do we not focus too much on the acquisition of basic knowledge on the expense of the development of cross-disciplinary skills? (listening aptitude, motivational competence, team work, assessment ability, etc.)
– Do we make the best use of the new technologies that are at our disposal (digital spaces, web radios, tablets, videoconferencing, etc.) in order to communicate more effectively with our pupils and their parents?
– How can we use the Etwinning platform to share these communication tools with our colleagues?
– Do we assess positively?
If we want our pupils to take ownership of their learning trajectory, we need to assess their needs and intelligence profiles first. To do this, we need to find out how our partners abroad manage to enthuse their pupils, with a view of providing our pupils with the willingness to learn and having them experience the fun of learning.
Through the diversity of educational systems, this partnership will allow teachers, parents and learners to share and observe innovative practices in a multitude of areas:
– The involvment of parents in their children’s work at school: parenthood and educational cooperation;
– Collaboration within and between classes;
– Consideration of pupils’ intelligence profiles and how they can determine pedagogical differentiation activities in class: practical examples;
– Role of the parents’ associations within the school and use of internet platforms in this context;
– Inclusion of pupils’ views in assessment;
– Position of new technologies (interactive boards, blogs, internet platforms, web radios, videoconferencing…);
– Interfaces between language training and other courses in order to promote European citizenship.
– Etc.
Albert Camus school has already been identified as a cluster of excellence in the field of innovative language-learning practices, and wishes to extend its expertise to the areas of collaborative and participative work.
With time and boosted by this momentum based on the discovery of and opening-up to new pedagogical practices, our school will be able to respond to the expectations of both pupils and parents. Strengthened by the good practices observed abroad, we will undoubtedly be able to reinvigorate with its pupils this willingness to learn.
An undeniable prerequisite is to train teachers and parents to listen to each other and to have an open mind and reach out.
This will lead to effective and efficient communication that will contribute to our pupils ‘ success.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 97170 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ecole Albert Camus & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Ecole Franco-Chypriote
• Istituto Comprensivo Statale Gandhi
• Collège Pierre Mendès France