Developing an understanding of European culture and heritage through the expressive and creative arts. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing an understanding of European culture and heritage through the expressive and creative arts.

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: Creativity and culture; Access for disadvantaged; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

The motivation for this project arose from a previous successful Erasmus+ project undertaken by the 5 participating schools. Having established that we were a group of like-minded schools, we built on this close cooperation to deepen our understanding of European culture and heritage and upskill teachers in our own countries and in our partner schools. Our project was called ‘Developing an understanding of European Culture and Heritage through the Creative and Expressive Arts’ .We explored this theme through 3 topics: ‘Art and Literature’, ‘Traditional foods and Gastronomy’ and ‘Music and Dance’.
The project objectives were:
To explore the social and educational value of European Cultural Heritage through discovering our own regional identities as well as our shared European identity and to consider how they have shaped our past and will shape our future.
To encourage active citizenship and foster a European identity in a post Brexit Britain and Europe.
To promote social inclusion by raising aspirations of students in socially deprived areas and providing a global perspective for future goals and to encourage equality of opportunities by ensuring participation by students from a range of backgrounds and academic abilities including children in receipt of free school meals, EAL looked-after children and those with additional educational needs.
To promote the acquisition of skills and competences through team building and problem solving and working collaboratively during LAs abroad and to promote innovation through expression in the creative arts (music and dance).
To train teachers from the 5 schools in using the e-twinning platform effectively, to improve their English language skills and to learn effective dissemination methods at the end of the project to ensure its sustainability.
Unfortunately, because of the pandemic we could not complete all of the mobilities. A visit to Spain for students and a training event for teachers is Wales had to be cancelled. We succeeded in postponing the project, but in February 2021 we realised that it was not possible to organise the last mobilities before the completion date of the project as schools were still closed in many countries of the participant organisations and the coordinator asked its agency to leave the project.
In spite of the situation we were able to finish all activities planned at school and complete the activities declared in the original application form, as we worked hard at the beginning of the school year before the full effects of the pandemic became apparent.

80 students joined the short term mobilities in Italy and Portugal accompanied by 2 teachers from each school. Teachers met for two trainings, firstly in Italy and secondly in Poland, where they improved their skills about Etwinning and dissemination methods.

In each partner school, a large number of other students were involved in the activities and most of the teachers in each school were involved by supporting the three themes of the project in their departments as relevant. Art teachers were involved in workshops during the Art project and Music and PE teachers were involved in delivering workshops on the themes of music and dance
.
Activities included dance and music workshops, researching traditional instruments, dances and songs in/3D each partner country, the creation of a partnership dictionary, a project internet site, 2D/3D models of local buildings of interest, project logo competitions, a poetry publication and final events at the end of each theme. We also produced a European recipe book of traditional recipes in 5 languages. A youtube channel was also created used to showcase traditional songs and dances. Unfortunately we could not end the project with the planned final show due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

Students worked in small groups using informal teaching methods to encourage participation and integration. ICT was a useful tool in implementing all parts of the project and the student committees played a major role in determining project implementation in all schools. Questionnaires and surveys were used to assess student and teacher satisfaction. During the mobilities, students worked in mixed country groups to encourage collaboration amongst schools.

Despite the situation the outcomes of the project include:
Better quality of teaching and learning in participant schools through comparing school systems and sharing effective pedagogies.
Effect on students in terms of creativity, self confidence and their motivation to learn new languages and improve in languages which are already taught within our schools.
Intercultural dialogue and reduction of racial prejudice in all schools and in local communities
Developing pupils’ digital competencies by the creation of an interactive website and by training teachers in the use and exploitation of the E twinning platform.
Many of these results can be seen in the final evaluation of the project.

Project Website

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/77506/pages/page/551212

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 122429,16 Eur

Project Coordinator

Coedcae School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Casa de Escuelas Pias de Monforte (PP. Escolapios)
• Zespol Katolickich Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych nr 1
• Agrupamento de Escolas D. Afonso Henriques, Santo Tirso
• Istituto Comprensivo di Nole