Fairytales – Fiction – Friendship Bertie the bookworm finds friends all over Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Fairytales – Fiction – Friendship
Bertie the bookworm finds friends all over 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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

During our three year project we developed our pupils’ reading competence which is one of the key skills in their education. Our five primary schools in England, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain offered their children of all age groups different creative and child-friendly methods to motivate them to read more. We wanted them to realize that reading is a life skill that can inspire, help develop imagination and questioning, is important but most of all fun. We made sure that children with specific difficulties and low motivation to read were included to enhance their chances for a successful school education.
In surveys we found out about the pupils’ reading habits, preferences and skills. They voted for their top books and presented them to the partner schools. Bertie the Bookworm was/is our project mascot. He traveled to the partner schools carrying project results and observing project work. During the whole partnership we motivated our children to read many books, comics and magazines, talk about them and read them to each other. Pupils made their own bookworms which grew in length with every book they read throughout the project.
Countries exchanged traditional stories, fairytales and legends from their culture with accompanying art work and versions written by the children. We invited authors into schools and visit printing and publishing houses. Children studied promotion strategies to gain basic knowledge and impressions about the production and sale of the books we read. Children “went back in time” interviewing adults about what they read and played with when they were children, comparing their findings with today’s childhood and putting their results in “time machines”.
Pupils chose and presented their book heroes and invented their own hero, based on their personal values and ideas. In creative and cooperative work they put them together in fantasy stories, designed costumes and props for them and played their scenes on stage. They dressed up as their hero for a show during a mobility and competed in story based sporting activities. Through these different and motivating activities our pupils improved their own reading skills in combination with other skills such as creative writing in their mother tongue and in English, researching about project topics, using media, presenting work, producing creative artwork and drama etc.
Direct contacts between our classes, individual children and teachers via the eTwinning portal supported language learning and intercultural education. Allowing our children to work, play, communicate and visit each other strengthened their understanding of the everyday life of children, families and schools in other EU-countries. By taking part in transnational learning activities they experienced firsthand family life and culture by staying with host families, giving the children a real life focus and purpose for their project work. The students get into contact with different European languages and use English as the project language for communication and presentation. These transnational activities were intensive working time and highlights in our partnership, presenting and evaluating results and celebrating success.
For our teachers we encouraged an intensive exchange of teaching methods and styles and share good practice, especially in the fields of reading and literacy, project work, creative thinking and media use. Our teachers and children cooperated closely, planned and carried out project work together and shared its results. We involved parents, local communities and other partners. We made progress and results visible on our project website, the regular Bertie Magazine and the eTwinning portal as well as in displays and presentations at school.
Finally we sumed up our outcome in a reading curriculum which gives guidelines and methods about how we can improve our pupils’ reading skills leading to a sustainable and high quality educational work.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 154910 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hans-Grade-Grundschule Borkheide & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Tregoze Primary School
• Fundación Federico Fliedner Colegio Juan de Valdés
• Istituto Comprensivo Loano Boissano
• ZESPOL SZKOL- SZKOLA PODSTAWOWA