READING for LIFE Erasmus Project

Project Title

READING for LIFE

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

In order to embrace diversity, pupils need to get in touch with different cultures. Erasmus + and eTwinning projects are a great way to to give them access to a variety of different cultures and traditions. We would like to promote reading for pleasure among our pupils and in the meanwhile to teach values and promote social, intellectual, moral and emotional growth. The objectives of the project are linked with the needs of our schools and the priorities that we have selected: are: promotion of social inclusion, preventing early school leaving and supporting disadvantaged pupils, supporting teachers’ development:
1. Every participating student will have read at least 4 books, 1 book/semester by June 2021
2. Supporting the participation in the activities of all pupils from the lowest to the highest academic rank, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, economic or social status to create equal opportunities and to promote social inclusion and solidarity of all participating pupils
3. Reducing absenteeism by 10% by June 2020 and another 10% by June 2021 among the pupils from the selected classes by supporting all pupils participation in engaging activities that will make school attractive for them with a pleasant environment, thus preventing early school leaving
4. Enabling and supporting teachers’ professional development through collaboration at European level, class observation, sharing good practices, designing and implementing new teaching materials and methods
There will be 5 participating schools from Romania, Norway, Spain, Slovenia and Portugal and students’ age is 11-15.
Pupils will participate in a wide range of activities, not only locally, but also in Learning/Teaching/Training activities, according to the designed Timetable (logo competition, eTwinning activities, communication activities, drama, video making, journalism, creative writing, reading activities and evaluation), which will develop their personality, creativity, critical thinking and love for books.
We have designed a variety of activities, where each student can find what it is best for them, to feel included, appreciated and pride for their work. There will be activities in which they need to write creatively, express opinions, research on different topics, draw, act, record videos, translate, work in teams and individually. We have chosen 4 books, one for each semester/topic, but we will provide students with an optional reading list for those who would like to read more on the topic. We have divided our project in 4 parts, each part will deal with a different topic, assigned a book to be read and the activities were designed according to the books and topics:
September 2019 – January 2020: Tolerance/Non-discrimination: “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”-John Boyne
February 2020-June 2020: Bullying/Cyberbullying/e-Safety: “Girl Online”-Zoe Sugg
September 2020-January 2021: Social Change & Civic Engagement: “The Giver”-Lois Lowry
February 2021-June 2021: Expressing Emotions/Self-image: “The Fault in Our Stars”-John Green
Tangible Results:
1. Erasmus + board and corner in each school – constantly updated with the latest activities (photos and descriptions)
2. Reading Wall – a board where teachers and pupils share the name of the book that they’re reading at the moment, and offer a sentence about it.
3. A comic book with 2 superheroes (boy & girl) entirely written, edited, designed by pupils. The comic book will contain 4 stories (episodes).
4. Facebook page of the project
5. Website of the project
6. eTwinning project with public pages on Twinspace
7. Handbook: “Reading for Life: Social Inclusion in Schools” – created by the participating teachers with all the activities, which will have been implemented during the project:
Part I: cross-curricular lesson plans on the following topics: tolerance, non-discrimination, migration/refugees, bullying, cyber-bullying, eSafety, social change & civic engagement, social injustice, expressing emotions, gender equality, self-image. Each school will have a lesson on this topic and the lesson plans will be gathered and published in the Handbook.
Part II: description of the activities (local and eTwinning) we designed based on the chosen books to teach values and promote social, intellectual, moral and emotional growth, divided by the topics mentioned above.
8. Logo of the project
We will continue to use the results of the projects. The activities and the lesson plans from the the Handbook “Reading for Life: Social Inclusion in Schools” will
be used to continue our work, to implement the activities and the lessons that our partners have designed and implemented in their schools during the project.
The “Reading Wall” will be maintained, teachers and pupils will still have the opportunity to share their recommendations of books, after the project ended.
Collaboration among partners and sharing good practice will remain open after the end of the project on Twinspace.

Project Website

https://readingforlifeerasmus.wordpress.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 150730 Eur

Project Coordinator

Liceul Tehnologic “Octavian Goga” Jibou & Country: RO

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas de Idães
• Hilstad barne- og ungdomsskole
• Institut Consell de Cent
• Osnovna sola Litija