“Ready, set, go”: A healthy mind in a healthy body Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Ready, set, go”: A healthy mind in a healthy body

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: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Health and wellbeing; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

The “A healthy mind in a healthy body” KA2 project included 2 partners from 2 different countries (France: Collège de Wassigny and United Kingdom: Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera in Swnasea, Wales).

This project aimed at raising awareness among teenagers about the importance of leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle by improving the quality of one’s diet and by promoting the importance of practising a regular physical activity.
As such, our project dealt with the subject of Health which is in line with the EU Health strategy “Together for Health”, supporting, in turn, the “Europe2020 Strategy”.
Our desire to build and work on a project tackling the isssue of “Health and Sport” stemmed from the observation that adolescents’s lifestyles tend to be less and less healthy. As we explained in the application form, many surveys illustrate this fact. We are not going into details as these examples are mentioned in the application form (cf the mention of the surveys led by the Eurobarometer on Sport and Physical Activity (Brussels, March 2014), the OECD and the programmes created to foster healthier lifestyles such as “EPODE” and “Change4Life”).

The objectives of our project were numerous and varied. These objectives are mentioned in page 10/40 of the application form. They are not listed again here due to a lack of space.

Thanks to the activities that will be mentioned more in depth a bit further down, we managed to reach the objectives aforementioned.
The monthly (for the first year of the project) and the termly (for the second year of the project) planned activities helped increase the pupils’s motivation, ambition, self-confidence and open-mindedness. They realized the opportunity they had to be part of such a project. They wanted to be deserving of such an opportunity. Therefore, they showed motivation and commitment in each stage and each activity of the project.
The activities tackling the issue of Health and Sport helped the students grasp the importance of leading and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It also helped them improve their physical condition and enabled them to make wiser and more sensible nutritional choices.
The “short-term exchange of pupils” planned during the partnership helped the pupils grasp the importance and the great opportunity of being mobile and enabled them to understand the diversity of European cultures.
Exchanging with our foreign counterparts acquainted us with other teaching and learning methods.

Initially, on the French side, 38 pupils were supposed to take part in the project. We decided to include all the voluntary pupils. During the two years of the project, the students involved in this project were in Year 9 and in Year 10. This partnership included about 60 pupils. This large number is justified by the fact that the activities and the project were inscribed in the curriculum of the pupils. So, the activities were all done during classes. Regarding the “short-term exchange of groups of pupils”, the large amount of money granted allowed us to include more than 38 pupils. Therefore when going to Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera, 48 pupils were part of the exchange and when the Welsh partners came to France, all the Year 10 pupils – i.e. 60 pupils – welcomed their partners.
The majority of the French pupils come from the lower socioprofessional categories. They have to deal with social hardships such as unemployment, poverty, split and foster families. Therefore, being part of such a project was and is a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity for most of them.

The impact on the students and on the pedagogical teams is quite significant. The impact and the benefits can be measured in the short term, in the middle term and in the long term. In the short term, pupils realized what they were doing and the great opportunity they had to be part of this project. It developed their open-mindedness, their motivation and their commitment. It also helped them being more confident when realizing they were able to do the tasks asked of them and they were able to exchange and communicate with their partners. It also developed their status as European citizens. In the middle term, taking part in this project and having the opportunity to meet their partners in their home country made them want to be more mobile and to travel more, especially that most of the pupils never had the opportunity to leave their home country before. They showed their willingness to be part of a similar project in the future. Maybe they will have this opportunity again in high school.
Regarding the pedagogical teams, we benefited from it by discovering and testing new pedagogical methods and IT tools which will be re-used in the near future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65552,49 Eur

Project Coordinator

Collège de Wassigny & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Ysgol Gyfun ystalyfera