Finding your Voice Erasmus Project

Project Title

Finding your Voice

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: Social dialogue; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The program “Finding your Voice” is a cooperation between three schools. The Stedelijke Scholengemeenschap Nijmegen in the Netherlands, Budaiközepiskola in Hungary, en IIS “E Fermi” in Italy. These schools have had experience in the past in exchanging, and decided to enter into a strategic partnership for good practices together.

After a needs analysis conducted by survey in our third grade classes and among teachers, we could conclude a few issues within the organisations. The students questioned didn’t feel much motivation or interest in politics, democracy and current events, students were relatively unaware of the consequences of their actions on the internet, and the threat of cynicism and general xenophobia seemed to affect some of them.

This prompted the SSgN to engage into an idea of implementing the Jenaplan values which exist inside their school in an Erasmus+ partnership. These values focus on a view to oneself, the others around you and the world. All three schools were interested in this implementation, so the foundation for this project was created.

The focus was to educate students, who were exchanging annually through an existing exchange programme, in three categories. The students were given assignments and tasks to be carried out before, during and after the exchange. The exchange program prompted us to have a solid foundation for a well-rounded Erasmus+ application which aimed at:

1. Students’ sense of democracy on multiple levels (school, regional, national and EU-level).
2. Combatting xenophobia and exploring other cultures.
3. Battling cyberbullying and being more aware of your digital footprint.

The schools involved had the expertise and know-how to create projects of this size from their work before, and were eager to work together. Stedelijke Scholengemeenschap Nijmegen acted as the coordinating school, giving a setup of most exercises, modules and assignments to be implemented by all.

The physical results flowing forth from this project were as follows:
-EIO portfolios for all students involved, where they recorded their experiences and competencies. In their process of ‘Finding your Voice’ they kept functional diaries, and recorded their assignments and experiences.
-Fully formed lesson series focusing on democracy
-Fully formed lesson series focusing on the environment
-Fully formed lesson series focussing on the refugee crisis
-Lesson series and modules about the European Union (A 10 for Europe, developed by a teacher within our school in Nijmegen). This booklet is already in use by the information centre of the European Commission.
-Lessons, posters and booklets about cyberbullying and internet safety. These were mostly produced by the partner school in Italy.
-Many examples of students’ work and products.

Cognitive results were:
-More awareness about democracy, improving critial thinking
-A safer persona online for students
-Invaluable experience by living your life for an extended period of time in another culture
-Broader development of the view on the world around students; More awareness of current events.
-As well as improved language skills.

The change to our current curriculum came from the fact that students worked in bilateral partnerships, matched to level of education and interests. We required our participating students to work together during the school year, with the apotheosis coming in the physical exchanges which takes place in the Netherlands and their country of origin respectively. After the exchange, students have continued on in their cooperation with their partner, and disseminated their findings and experiences within their schools and outside of it with the help of the cooperating teachers and staff.

We engaged in doing this annual cycle of learning together for two years, and still we kept on working together within our organisations. The goal was implementing the fully formed lesson series and this way of enhancing our existing exchange program to address a problem which we defined in the application.

We also worked with a system of Junior European Parliament ambassadors. This means that a select group of students were actual representatives in our project. They travelled together and learned more about the European Union and work on projects, issues and discussions together. In this project we have engaged national and international ambassadors among our students, where the international students met and worked together in the Netherlands, Italy and Hungary in these two years.

The project was made available for many more students to work with.

Upon completion of the project, all materials and information remain freely available to all interested parties upon request. During all phases of the project, we engaged in dissemination activities tailored to all relevant stakeholders within and outside of our organisation, to make sure this project remained impactful, relevant and available to all parties.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 52150 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stedelijke Scholengemeenschap Nijmegen & Country: NL

Project Partners

• BGSZC Budai Középiskolája
• Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore “Enrico Fermi”