My values, your values, our values Erasmus Project

Project Title

My values, your values, our values

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; Inclusion – equity; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The project “My values, your values, our values” was planned and realised against the background of a discussion on values which took place in all three partner schools in England, Germany and Portugal. Part of this discussion was the topic to what extent the values of the European Union are known to the students and how values can be taught. In order to reach this rather abstract goal this basic question was split up into the following topics: What are our values? What are common values? How do we show the values? Which global importance do values have? Each school had a different focus, i.e. the German school concentrated on the refugees, the English school on inclusive education and the Portuguese school on economically deprived students. These topics were arranged and planned in modules which the students worked on during two years project.
At the beginning of the project the students did a survey at their schools to find out which values the students regard as important. During the first meeting the students compared the results and discussed what their common values are. Respect was considered the most important one. The basic method, which was introduced in this week and which can be regarded as the basis of all the projects, is ISL (International Service Learning), which is an innovative method to teach students to take responsibility by being committed to a social project in an international learning setting. A further important method the students learned was project management and linguistic and cultural mediation. During the first meeting the students then practised these methods by interviewing representatives of institutions which stand for certain values, e.g. a judge, a doctor, a priest and a representative of a home for elderly people.
The second meeting, which took also place in Germany, was dedicated to the question how values are shown. In order to discuss this question the students visited the following organisations and had interviews with the respective representatives: Misereor in Aachen, Europe Direct in Cologne, the Archbishopric in Cologne. The results were discussed, visualized and the school communities were informed.
During the third meeting in Portugal the students focused on the question what they can do to show values. They prepared their visit to and their work for different charity organisations, e.g. Refood. The ISL method was quite relevant in this context because the students learned in an international setting what it means to help other people. The different jobs they had to do were well prepared and evaluated afterwards.
In order to prepare for the last meeting in England the students discussed the question to what extent values are also important on a global scale. They prepared a final conference which took place in the House of Commons in London and also discussed with members of the conservative party. This final conference can be regarded as the climax of the whole project since the students could show what they had learned about the topic, linguistically and methodologically in the last two years.
The Erasmus+ project has had a deep and positive impact on all schools and it will be continued.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65435 Eur

Project Coordinator

Erzbischöfliche Marienschule Opladen & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Escola Secundária Afonso Lopes Vieira
• Frances Bardsley Academy for Girls