Respect – a Value for a Lifetime Erasmus Project

Project Title

Respect – a Value for a Lifetime

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Environment and climate change; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

Confucius said: “Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish Men from beasts?” According to psychologists, respect is a basic moral value or need which makes us aware that we are human beings and it is related to happiness, productivity and success. Moreover, when people respect each other, there are less conflicts and less fighting. The awareness about respect must be instilled in every human being from his/her childhood. That is why we strongly believe that it should be cultivated to pupils at school in a more consistent way, as part of the curriculum, as it is a very important value. After studying the meaning of respect, the project was divided into three very important aspects: Self-Respect, Respecting Others, Respecting the Environment (Property). Different activities were carried out for all 3 aspects each year, in order to inculcate this value to our pupils. Due to the topic selected, the problems that were be addressed in this project are pollution, racism, xenophobia and bullying, low self-esteem and disrespectful behavior.So, this cooperation is a great opportunity for teachers, pupils, pupils’ parents and community. Teachers can develop new skills, get some information about different educational systems, practice ICT and language skills in their personal capacity, broaden their knowledge about countries, cultures. As a result of this project pupils acquired positive self-esteem, which is necessary for other types of respect, happiness and success, became more respectful towards others and the environment. Moreover, they are more able to express their opinion, without criticizing and insulting others and become more acceptive to critic. Generally. they became more tolerant and open-minded, understand rules’ importance and follow them willingly, increase their English communication and ICT skills, become aware of their national and European identity. Parents benefited not only because of their children’s personal and academic development, but also byb having some opportunities to support school in various activities. Schools gain a lot by the new curriculum where respect will be consistently promoted as part of curricula and also by the integration of different subjects (art, music, English language, maths, geography, IT PE etc). Community was also favored by the change in the attitude of pupils as far as respect to nature is concerned and through active citizenship that will be the result of positive self-esteem. Moreover, respectful citizens will not cause so much problems to community since they will know well which actions are respectful and which are not.The project was carried out by 4 schools from 4 different countries: Bulgaria,Spain, Cyprus and Poland. All school subject were involved in this project. A total of 3065 pupils and 278 teachers participated in the project.To carry out the project activities, various approaches were used, including the project method, blended learning, multimedia learning process (using audio, video, text etc). Also, collaborative learning, creativity-based learning, experiential learning ,active involvement of a large number of people, introduction of all parties to the project, action research, contest (logo, mascot, art),specialist invitation,external visits were be used along with ICT to achieve the project aims for all participants.One of the most important products of the project is the a set of lesson plans-activities related to respect, that will be available on Twinspace, the project’s blog, school websites. These activities are divided into 5 groups: Spanish, Greek, English, Polish, Bulgarian. Lesson plans, pedagogic material and feedback on the activities will be available. This dataset of lesson plans and pedagogic material about respect will be collected in 5 different languages.Other results will be the Logo and mascot of respect, the Respect Song, Campaign Posters, Dictionary of Respect, A “flat movie” about respect, different codes (respect, ecologist), the Green Holidays Presentation etc. Also, there will be talks and meetings with interesting people, as well as different thematic weeks (Friendship Week, Compliment Week, Week Against Bullying, Week of Tolerance), during which relevant activities will occur. Finally, a concert / festival will be organized and all the money collected by these will be given to charity.For us dissemination is important, so we plan to use any channels including school web pages, social media, other media (Tv, radio, magazines) to make our project’s scope and results known to as many people as possible. All our results will be available and access will be open to them.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 56880 Eur

Project Coordinator

G.C. Elementary School Ltd & Country: CY

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa nr 114 z Oddzialami Integracyjnymi im. Jedrzeja Cierniaka
• Sava Dobroplodny
• CEIP Santiago Ramón y Cajal