Top SeCret Erasmus Project

Project Title

Top SeCret

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: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

How can educators promote the use of English as a Foreign Language through CLIL (Content and Language Integrated learning) in an international setting for 9-12 year old learners, introducing them to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and allowing them to use technology to interact, communicate, collaborate and create?

These were the questions our schools in Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and France had in common when they were brought together by two of the coordinators who met on a professional development course in the UK and had worked on eTwinning projects and KA1 since. The participating schools all share the experience or desire of teaching CLIL and have identified the need to encourage pupils to use more English or other foreign languages (in the Welsh context) outside of the teacher- led activities in the classroom. Therefore, a shared teacher training course is part of the project. Each of the schools has an expertise they will bring to the project theme of sustainability. For Spain it is science, for France it is maths, for the Netherlands and Wales it is PE and IT and for Denmark it is technology.

Our project is entitled ‘Top SeCret’ where the S stands for Sustainability and the C refers to CLIL. During the pupil mobilities it involves, pupils will play the role of secret agents during which they will face different challenges regarding CLIL activities from different CLIL subjects which all revolve about the principal topic of Sustainability. Pupils will stay in host families during their stay abroad. Since not all pupils will have the opportunity to travel, they will explore each other’s countries while working virtually together on eTwinning.

The resources produced during the project will be instruction videos for escape rooms (access with QR codes), scavenger hunts, (robotic) games and so on. We intend to share these resources with fellow educators in a toolkit for CLIL activities on sustainability together with our methodology during the first meeting in Spain and throughout the project. It will help us to expand the positive impact to pupils in other contexts. Not only will we share through our blog and social media channels, but we will also give good practice workshops at networks for EFL teachers, for Erasmus+ and CLIL conferences whenever we can and open our schools to job shadowing. On top of that we will ask teachers inside and outside the project for feedback to make sure the toolkit is user-friendly and effective.

The project itself and the participation in the training event and pupil mobilities in the different countries will contribute specifically to the professional development of the teachers of 9 – 12 year-old pupils. However, all teachers will participate as in order to bring the innovation to the school as a whole, Year 5 and 6 teachers will discuss and implement their new knowledge together with their colleagues who teach younger pupils at their school and will set up activities for them during mobilities where our 9 -12 year old pupils will lead the activities as secret agents. Working with the French and Spanish schools, which are more experienced in CLIL, we will support the other schools to implement the acquired knowledge in the activities set up for this project as well as in the curriculum during and after the lifespan of the project. Apart from the development of knowledge, CLIL skills and the topic of sustainability, we expect an increase in the teachers’ confidence in using English within the EFL and CLIL class, with their pupils and colleagues. We expect the project to empower the teachers to encourage target language development through the innovative methodologies we will develop. On top of that, we expect, our pupils to take a step further when using their key competences and give them the chance to use them in authentic environments with European peers through collaborative activities.

The Top SeCret project will allow our pupils and teachers to work and learn in an exciting and innovative cross-cultural setting and to learn from and with each other. It will also mean an excellent opportunity for them to work at a transnational level which will stand the test of time in all their memories and will go down in the history of the participating schools.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 147117 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asgård Skole & Country: DK

Project Partners

• CEIP NTRA. SRA. DE LA FUENSANTA
• Ystrad Mynach Primary School
• Basisschool Noorderlicht
• Ecole publique Pierre Vincent