“Creativity and integration in a culturally diverse society” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Creativity and integration in a culturally diverse society”

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: Inclusion – equity; Access for disadvantaged; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

This project involved five primary schools from five different countries: Italy, Spain, Finland, Ireland and UK.

Four out of five of these schools had never previously experienced a European Exchange Program. Most of the schools are situated in rural areas with low exposure to other languages and cultures.
Children with learning difficulties are numerous and one of the schools has two special classes for children with autism.The special classes for autism have access to specialised facilities, such as a sensory room and a room for occupational therapy.
In this project we have been working on inclusion and integration through creativity doing simple but effective activities through art, music and culture.
We had the opportunity to understand how our different education systems work with specific interest in inclusion and integration.
Visiting the schools enabled us to see their practices. This would help improve the provision of education through a model of inclusion and integration in our own schools.
Sharing our experiences and approaches to inclusion and integration have been very beneficial. We updated our models of inclusion so that all pupils, regardless of ability are learning among their peers whilst meeting their needs.

We had great opportunities to improve the use of ICT as a means of communication with other schools for the purpose of sharing teaching and learning practices. The schools collaborated on a musical performance through a live video call led by the school in Spain and also during mobilities the partners shared videos of activities and performances based on the agreed tasks. The Pandemic further challenged us to use technology more as we couldn’t travel and this was a great chance for both teachers and pupils to find an alternative way of communicating and developing the digital skills of staff, pupils and their families as a platform for teaching and learning.

This project allowed our children to be exposed to other languages and cultures through Erasmus corners displays, materials and presentations shared in our Etwinning Twinspace and events such as school visits.
Through this project as teachers we shared creative ideas and techniques and applied them in the classroom: learning with lapbooks (science experience on living and non living things), learning through music (hip hop songwriting activity, body percussion activity) and gamification (participation to the European Code Week). This helped us to enhance pupils motivation and collaboration through cooperative learning, problem solving, workshops, the use of learning centers.
We have been working on diversity as a variety of habits (activities based on the butterfly circus short movie), experiences (charities and schools for disadvantaged children) and languages and highlighted the benefits of diversity.

Since the Christmas Exchange Market was not possible due to Pandemic, we decided to carry on activities about diversity based on different experiences.
The ongoing pandemic gave Clocha Rince NS the opportunity to broaden the engagement with the project by creating a further link within the wider school community. With the assistance of some parents, the children produced artwork, wrote letters and cards and made ‘care packages’ for the residents of a local nursing home. This enabled the children to explore their creativity and to have a greater understanding of those with needs within their community. It was a beneficial and rewarding exercise and has given the school an opportunity to teach the children about valuing our older generation.
The school from Italy produced a video, which you will find attached to this report, based on the experience of a teacher who volunteered in Ethiopia. This video had a deep impact on the school children as they could see how different the reality of Ethiopia was. The video was used for intercultural debate in all classes.
Spain
Finland
Northern Ireland

The cultural experiences shared helped everyone to understand and appreciate different habits, traditions, music and languages:
-production of videos with an original song in all the different languages
-each country wrote a verse of the Ode of Joy in their own language
-videos about experiences of cultural diversities

Because of the Pandemic restrictions we couldn’t perform a real show, but we prepared material on different media on the main topics such as social inclusion and human rights. The Pandemic helped us to develop our competences in online interactions and the kids were able to see and share what they produced even through this difficult situation.

This project had a significant impact on our school community because it brought an international perspective to school discussions and challenged and encouraged staff to consider new methods of instruction that are more consistent with their previous learning experiences. From the pupils perspective this has been a great opportunity from both a cultural and a personal point of view. Spending quality school time reflecting upon essential issues such as diversity and inclusion made the difference in their educational path.

Project Website

http://creativityandintegration.wordpress.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 79479 Eur

Project Coordinator

Istituto Comprensivo E.Galvaligi & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Clocha Rince NS
• Waringstown Primary School
• Linnakankaan koulu
• CEIP Manuel de Falla