Celebrations – Raising Expectations And Teachers’ Expertise Erasmus Project

Project Title

Celebrations – Raising Expectations And Teachers’ Expertise

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Our project C.R.E.A.T.E (Celebrations – Raising Expectations And Teachers’ Expertise) will bring together the pupils and staff of four schools from Wales and Romania who differ quite significantly in terms of background, history, location size and community, but who are united by a combined desire to raise the standards, skills and attitudes towards creativity, creative thinking, cultural awareness and wellbeing in both our pupils and staff. We have created a two year project based on the theme of celebrations and in each term we aim to embark on a creative thinking project based primarily on the arts. This is because we believe the creative arts provide an international language where a lack of a common fluent spoken language will neither inhibit the pupils’ progress or chances of success. Tasks undertaken will include photography, e-books, music and drama, creative writing and 2D and 3D art. We also plan to hold termly cultural exchange visits which will include either staff or pupils and staff depending on the nature and primary purpose of the visit. Each of these projects and visits have been timetabled and agreed by all participating schools to ensure joint ownership, progression and positive and successful outcomes.
Each school has specific aims for the project which tie in with their individual needs related to their specific improvement plans. For the Welsh schools we have the united objective of planning for Successful Futures and its four main purposes of creating ambitious capable learners, enterprising creative contributors, ethical, informed citizens and healthy confident individuals through the expressive arts, and its aim to develop the four wider skills of critical thinking and problem solving, planning and organising, creativity and innovation and personal effectiveness.
However all four schools have several further and significant overarching aims and reasons for participating in this project. We and our partner schools want to establish mutually beneficial links between European countries to raise cultural awareness and thereby raise the pupils’ understanding of other races and ways of life. We believe that it is vitally important that children of any nation not only build a sense of pride and belonging based on their home country but also start to build an awareness of being part of an international community. We know that many pupils currently in primary school will be working in a worldwide job market. Therefore, it is essential that we provide opportunities for pupils to develop the confidence to work alongside children from other countries. This project will provide opportunities for children to work collaboratively with pupils within their own schools and across other schools, so communication skills and creative skills can be developed in parallel. We also aim to develop their growing geographical understanding of other places in Europe and their ability to look for what unites us as well as what makes each of us unique. Developing skills that will be of benefit to them in their future employment is a further major priority. We also aim to develop the digital competency skills of both pupils and staff as we establish an inter cultural dialogue via email and skype as well as creating platforms which will allow us to share the work that we have done with each other.
Although this is specifically funded as a two year project we envisage that the potential long term benefits for the pupils and staff of all the schools involved will be significant. The skills they develop in terms of creativity, language development, emotional wellbeing, academic engagement, creative thinking and problem solving skills will be ones that they can take forward with them throughout their life long learning and that will raise their prospects in the employability market. Furthermore by providing a means for staff to develop their own pedagogical skills and cultural and European understanding we will also be able to share these skills with future pupils and not simply restrict the benefits to our present cohorts making this a project that will have significant impact for many years to come.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 47409,06 Eur

Project Coordinator

St Mellons Church in Wales Primary School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA NUCET
• Scoala Primara
• Ysgol y Ddraig