The value of citizenship: education as the foundation of the future in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

The value of citizenship: education as the foundation of the future in 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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

Our secundary school is the result of a fusion of two centres in 2012. Since then, the staff has emphasised the Europeanization of the centre as a priority aim, and therefore, its opening to Europe. Following this line of work, in 2015 we obtained an ERASMUS + KA1 project “We open doors to Europe: good practices and new methodologies as the future of our education” with which teachers received innovative training in the fields of digital skills, non-discrimination and inclusive education. During the 2016-2017 academic year we participated in a European project KA3: ATS2020 Assessment of Transversal Skills. An experimentation project, co-financed by the European Commission in which 17 partners from 11 EU countries participated, mostly educational administrations and ministries of education, as well as a set of 250 schools in 10 countries, including our centre. These needs and proposals also go along with the contact with schools in Italy and Germany with whom we began to consider this project. Finally, in 2017 we coordinated the current project with Karl von Frisch Gymnasium of Dusslingen as a partner.
The objectives have been set with the intention of promoting and increasing the knowledge of our students about the most positive characteristics that the countries of the European Union can contribute to our individual and collective development. Coexistence was also a fundamental criterion, and we included the possibility that our students could experience this positive relationship in first person. Thus, the approach of an exchange “school with school” was born, involving a large group in this task. We firmly believe that collaborative work includes and enhances greater individual achievement, resulting in the effort that each student must take to make their work profitable. After the pre-selection of students of 1st BACH, we also decided to disseminate this beginning among the students of 4th ESO, that is, students between 15 and 17 years of age, considering that they could take more conscious advantage of all the advantages surrounding the project. An important aspect to favour the inclusion in the essence of the project is the “awareness of openness”, facing challenges beyond our borders, offering the center an imprint of integration that consolidates our work.
We gauged and assessed these attitudes in different conversations and previous meetings held with the interested applicants. During this first pre-selection we shared the activities together, and only 21 students were selected after several meetings and joint work. Thus, the previous activities carried out under the project, such as The celebration of the European Year of National Heritage, the Day of Europe 2018, the days on German culture and language, the visit to the Parliament of Galicia, the exhibition on Mauthausen … also had their presence. In September 2018 we shared with our partners 10 days of work, visits, varied activities, of which the most significant moments were the visit to Dachau and the visit to the Strasbourg Parliament. The revised history through two very different points of view, which would mean the definitive experience for all. In addition, work in the classrooms of the partner centre, and visits to cultural spaces in Stuttgart, Heildelberg or München, completed our stay in German land.
Having arrived at the halfway of the project, it was our turn to guide our partners in their visit to our hometown. In this way, our groundwork was distributed to the students who prepared an informative dossier with the visits and the planned activities. In Santiago, the Galician Parliament and the Cathedral polarized their stay, and visits to the Museums of Coruña and Lugo, broadened their cultural perspective regarding the future horizon of our community and the traces of our past. In our secondary school the impact was very important, considering we are a small school in a small town; and events like the Intercultural Games day or the local authorities reception of our german students meant very positive moments to the whole group. In order to contrast and analyze the consequences of this exchange, the final phase was carried out, and the observable effects that took place in the school centre are the direct result of this collaborative work: enriching the library with a European space section, setting up an informative wall dedicated to the exchange in the playground area, giving continuity to the project through teaching specific subjects with contents relating to Europe (in ESO and BACH), blog, web, … These are facts that demonstrate that the marked objectives were 100% achieved. Moreover, they were enriched during the development of the project by means of the meetings held with the main agents: management, teaching staff, students and families. An idea that still remains strong in our school center.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 58400 Eur

Project Coordinator

Instituto de Educación Secundaria de Ribadeo Dionisio Gamallo & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Karl-von-Frisch-Gymnasium