School Exchange Partnership: Ways to a greener future Erasmus Project

Project Title

School Exchange Partnership: Ways to a greener future

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Environment and climate change; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

1. Context/background of project:
Since 2016, our two project coordinating teachers have worked together on 2 Erasmus+ projects and have organised 5 successful student exchanges. Unfortunately we had no such exchange in the last 2 years due to changes in our Transition Year programme. All our past Erasmus+ projects and the students exchanges were well supported by the school management and very well perceived by the participating students and parents.
Our new Erasmus+ KA229 project is a combination of the two above and is based around the topics sustainability/climate action 2020, language and cultural exchange, collaboration between students, teachers and school communities with a focus on improving the sustainable development in our schools, in the households of our students and staff. We are hoping to produce a list of practical ideas in the form of a brochure about how to improve “sustainability in schools” and share that with a wider community. Our new project is called “Ways to a greener future”.
We are guided in our Erasmus+ KA229 application form by the LAOS document, that is provided by the Irish Department of Education and Skills in 2016 and we would like to promote the idea of sustainable development of our schools, our households and communities in Ireland and Germany.
“Looking at Our School 2016: A Quality framework for Post-Primary Schools” (LAOS 2016) is designed to give a clear picture of what good or very good practices in a school look like. (…) The framework is built around the areas of teaching and learning, and leadership and management. These are the two key areas of the work of a school that directly impact on students’ learning outcomes and experiences. (LAOS, page 5).
2. Objectives of our project:
We are very conscious that maintaining and improving the quality of learning in schools is a constant challenge in a rapidly changing world. Teachers have to be at the heart of any effort to improve learning and it’s widely accepted that where schools reflect on the quality of their work and plan for how it can be improved, students learn better.
Following the European initiative for Climate Action 2020 and the European Environment & Climate Action Horizon 2020 we have decided to support such European endeavor by engaging our schools’ communities with the global issue of “sustainability”.
Scoil Mhuire is working currently on the planning for a new Greenfield Site for a new school building with the increased capacity for over 1000 students. We would like to come up with some “green” ideas and recommendations for our new school, that will be the result of our Erasmus+ co-operation and collaboration. Students at Gymnasium Petrinum established an initiative called “Petrinum for future” aiming at improving sustainability on different levels of the school.
3. Number and profile of participants:
We will have 12 students aged 16 (or 15) on each side forming a student’s partnership for the exchange during the 2 mobilities. Irish participants are all Transition Year students, which is the 4th year at secondary level (from 1st to 6th). The German students will come from different classes and form work-groups, that will function as multipliers to bring change to the whole school.
4. Description of activities:
We will have 2 mobilities (trips to the partner school and the host family) per year of the duration of 9 days in total each, in 2020/2021 and 2021/2022. Our students will engage with each other via eTwinning, Skype etc during their courses class time to exchange ideas and best practice examples to prepare meetings.
5. Methodology to be used in carrying out the project:
We will focus on approaches of education for sustainable development. We aim at improving the language skills and intercultural competences of our students by working on the very current and essential topic of climate change. From the LAOS 2016 we know why having good self-evaluation in schools is of the greatest importance. Evaluations for students, teachers and parents will underpin our collaboration and provide clarity for our project.
6. Results and impact envisaged and the potential longer term benefits:
Our aim is to raise awareness for the global climate crisis and the necessity of a transformation of the economy, society and politics towards a higher degree of sustainability. An intercultural exchange offers the chance to widen the horizons of our students by examining aspects of sustainability from an intercultural perspective. We want to develop ideas and concepts to make our schools more sustainable, as a first step or model for wider changes. Then we intend to put ideas into practice by initiating school projects in liaison with the Petrinum Gymnasium i.e. ideas for the new building for Scoil Mhuire or the new schoolyard for Gymnasium Petrinum, Green School, Green Water Ambassadors etc. At the same time we will exchange ideas for teaching and learning between partner schools and subject departments.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65291 Eur

Project Coordinator

Scoil Mhuire Trim & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Gymnasium Petrinum