Cultural exchanges – Your world, my world, our world. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cultural exchanges – Your world, my world, our 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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Culture encapsulates various aspects of learning. There are a number of cultural factors, which have direct implications for teaching and learning and teachers need to be responsive to individual ethnic groups’ cultural values, practices, language, learning preferences, involvement and familial patterns. Schools challenge teachers to accommodate for cultural diversity that influences learning styles within their classrooms. Teaching children about other cultures helps them to grow up and understand that cultures are brought together by various identities. The project would therefore be based on learning and understanding about how each country (of the partners in the project) has contributed to the host country’s culture and national identity through social, historical and geographical events, providing a window to each different culture. The experiences shared through this project would be invaluable to each school and would provide a long-lasting learning tool for each school to use.

In education, core learning in reading writing and maths is key in providing children with essential skills for their education and beyond. This, however, has meant that learning often takes a focus on these key skills, rather than the incorporation of all subjects contributing to what children learn. This includes cultural subjects such as history, religious education, art, music, geography, etc. Social diversity can also mean that children lack ‘real life’ learning experiences, which includes an appreciation of all cultures as well as their own. Learning about culture through this project will not only give the children and adults (who will be directly involved in the project) a better understanding of how other people learn and live, but they will also be able to present this information back to their schools as a vital teaching and learning tool that is gained through first hand experiences. Learning through culture will also promote increased tolerance of how other people live, which is imperative to younger generations in light of the current cultural climate.

The objectives of the project are to provide children with the knowledge and understanding of: what culture is; how it is different and similar in each country; how it has been established in each country and also how the history of each country has contributed to the culture of the country in which they visit. Through experiencing daily life of other cultures and finding out about the history of each country, staff and children will be able to present their findings firstly to each other within the time of the project activities and secondly to present to their own schools, which will act as a learning tool.
Pupils will also develop an understanding of how to engage with local communities and observe local and national landmarks. This will initiate discussion of how these famous landmarks came to be, their geographical and historical significance and how they have help shaped a country and it’s culture today. Other activities will include: orienteering, role-play, treasure hunts, visits to local amenities, etc. Many of the experiences will also provide opportunities to share culture and traditions as well as strategies to develop learning shared with communities back at home.

Activities will give opportunities to visit and experience localities different from our own, in order to share different cultures and traditions, focusing on the differences but most importantly similarities. Put simply, planned activities will allow teachers and children from different setting to focus on what defines them and their culture and be able to share that with others to promote acceptance and appreciation for the diverse world we live in. Children and teachers will then have the experiential grounding and can share this with the staff and students who did not take part in the mobility. This will help inform future teaching experiences at the schools, for example, through lesson planning, topic choices, educational visits.

Participants will be made up from a mixture of pupils, teachers and support staff at the different schools. Pupils attending the trips will represent the full age and ability ranges within the schools. These pupils will be selected in a variety of ways – some through task, some through membership of specific groups such as a language teaching group, some through parental support of the project.

As a result of the work undertaken during the project, the participating schools will jointly create an Electronic Activity Pack (EAP). These will contain activity suggestions, resources and exemplified planning for each setting that can be used as a resource to support future groups working on the subject of culture and how it applies to a range of subjects. It is imperative that the strategies are developed and shared with professionals and communities beyond the project’s end. The EAP will therefore be of benefit to the teachers included in the mobility.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 180583 Eur

Project Coordinator

Beechfield School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Grundschule Böckerhof
• collège Joseph Lagrosillière
• Istituto Comprensivo Papa Giovanni XXIII
• CEPR SAR INFANTA LEONOR
• Proto Dimotiko Sholio Malion