What’s Ours is Yours: Sharing practice and cultural exchange Erasmus Project

Project Title

What’s Ours is Yours: Sharing practice and cultural exchange

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Creativity and culture; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

What’s Ours is Yours aimed to change attitudes and promote responsible local, national, European and Global Citizenship, inspiring secondary school students in Scotland, Spain and Ireland by providing opportunities for them to engage with their peers in partner schools while working towards shared aims. The project’s innovative design and approach allowed students to learn about and experience other people and places while taking pride in and celebrating their own communities. Pupil participants were provided with real and relevant contexts within which to develop curricular competencies alongside skills for life and work, while increasing cultural awareness, building unity and fostering positive relations across European borders. Teachers from partner schools had the opportunity to collaborate and share practice to enhance their own pedagogy. The project directly involved five hundred participants from secondary years two and three (approximate ages 12-14 years old) in state schools from Ireland, Spain and Scotland, with seventy participants benefiting directly from Erasmus+ funding across the two years of the project. Many more young people in the three partner schools’ wider communities benefited from involvement in project activities throughout the two-year duration. Six key teaching staff were directly involved in leading the partnership, with a wider network of teachers participating in project activities and benefiting from sharing practice events. What’s Ours is Yours related directly to curriculum developments in each of the involved partner schools as well as promoting international working and positive attitudes towards other people and cultures. The activities which took place were designed to enhance the employability skills of young people through their engagement with and development of digital competencies alongside interpersonal, foreign language and leadership skills. These activities involved the following – participating in a selection process, developing skills for life and work, when applying to be part of the project team; planning for and hosting visits from partner schools during which participants experienced a ‘day in the life’ of a Scottish, Spanish or Irish school pupil; sampling the customs and culture of the country visited while using Modern Language skills to interact and build relationships with peers; using the Modern Language to communicate in transactional situations with native speakers while participating in visits; working collaboratively within their own school to research, plan and create subtitled videos (one short film promoting their area as a tourist destination, and another short film documenting a ‘day in the life’ of their school) with versions in participants’ mother tongue as well as the foreign language. This project raised the profile of students studying other languages and the video projects created an engaging real-life context within which students were motivated to develop and apply their language skills. They also provided a practical application for music and music technology skills in an interdisciplinary context, allowing students in partner schools additional opportunities to develop digital literacy skills. The creation and development of multilingual resources has been, and will continue to be, used to support learning and teaching in each partner school at the same time as increasing pride in students’ own communities. The partnership has provided a window into the lives of teenagers in other countries, which has reinforced positive attitudes and increased participants’ understanding of the need for languages to develop relationships. The interdisciplinary approach involved in creating the videos brought participating curricular areas to life in an engaging way, and students involved are now more aware of the ways in which languages and other subject skills can be used together. This project facilitated the sharing of innovative teaching practice, not only between the partner schools, but also within the professional networks and communities of each partner. Hosting visits from partner schools has also impacted positively on the wider school communities involved, with a great deal of engagement and participation on the part of teachers and students not directly benefiting from funding. Participants in the wider school community experienced a real excitement and energy around the visits which impacted very positively on the schools’ ethos. This forum for collaboration and engagement in International Education has extended beyond the period of funding.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 50615 Eur

Project Coordinator

Carluke High School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Mercy College Coolock
• INSTITUT FRANCESC FERRER I GUÀRDIA