With Activities Towards Education and Relationships Erasmus Project

Project Title

With Activities Towards Education and Relationships

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Natural sciences

Project Summary

With Activities Towards Education and Relationships is the project title. The project acronym is WATER. By means of the title and its acronym we wanted to express two principal targets which were: firstly, the improvement of students’ communicative competences and their motivation for studying foreign languages using long-term friendships; secondly, the educating of participants about various roles of water in the nature and its importance for a mankind. Moreover, another objective of the project was exchange of good practices.
Participating organisations are Svatoplukova elementary school in Šternberk in the Czech Republic (the applicant) and Toråsskolan in Kungsbacka in Sweden (the partner). Since the classes with extended teaching of foreign languages are a part of Svatoplukova School Educational Program’s strategy the participation in the Erasmus+ is highly beneficial for the school. Svatoplukova school entered into a partnership with Toråsskolan seventeen years ago so the main motive for involvement in Erasmus+ has been to continue and improve already established international partnership. This exchange has helped pupils meet new people, discover different culture, use English to communicate and acquire closer friendships.
As it has been mentioned the objectives of our project were enhancing of participants’ communicative and social competences, motivating them to study foreign languages, exploring our especially water environment, showing respect for our nature and protecting it. The particular result of the project is an interactive map with participants’ photos, experiences, comments and findings about the places they visited. This map has been released on these websites https://www.zssvat.cz/projekty/projekt-erasmus/.
The target groups of participants were pupils in 8th and 9th grades, at the age of 13 to 15. All participants had to have an appropriate level of the language skills, communicative and social abilities and attributes like politeness, reliability, responsibility or friendly attitude. 12 Czech and 12 Swedish children for Activities C1 and C2 were chosen. The same age group of students and also the same number of them were chosen in the following year for Activities C3 and C4. None of the students participated part twice in the project. There were as many pupils involved as it was possible.
The activities were aimed at short-term exchanges of pupils and were planned in order to raise awareness of importance of water in our lives, teach participants about e.g. water underground, in the sea, rivers or in the cities; about using water for making electricity, fish and sea food, water sports etc. The programme was methodologically formed of a various combination of group or pair work.
To ensure the participants’ safety each activity was accompanied by four teachers. Even before each exchange visit was held, the meetings with the participants and their parents was organized to inform everybody about particular activities, potential risks, financial resources, timetable and outcomes. At the beginning of each exchange, the participants got the partner’s names and they contacted each other via social networks.
Immediately after their arrival to the host country the participants’ parents picked the children up and took them to their homes where they stayed for the whole visit.
The content of the programme in Sweden included activities like: a boat trip, visits of science and nature centre, fish auction and fish market, sewage disposal plant, doing a seabed research, preparing and eating traditional food, city sightseeing; in the Czech Republic visiting caves, hydroelectric power station, cheese factory, city sightseeing with fountains or typical free time activities like rafting or water park. The participants also had the opportunity to meet the town and school representatives. Pupils worked on the last school day of every exchange at school on their photos, material, presentations, wrote tests, and evaluated the whole exchange programme.
Students were supposed to collect material during their whole participation in the project for the final outcome, an interactive map. They handed a number of photos with their descriptions and texts to the teachers who uploaded them into the Google map. It has been shared with partners, released on the school website and presented in the public. Moreover, the map shows students’ and also teachers’ individual trips between Erasmus+ activities that have something to do with water. To take and share photos from their family trips was arranged with the aim to maintain the communication among students after the visits and to show further areas of involved countries to the participants.
Unfortunately, the last activity could not have been realized due to the Covid-19 pandemic, despite extending the programme period by one year. Both partners agreed on an alternative. Czech students created PowerPoint presentations from the most important places of the original programme which were afterwards presented to the Swedish students at school.
At the end the project has been widely positively evaluated. The last term of the project was deeply affected by the lockdowns, restrictions and serious Covid-19 conditions in both countries. Nevertheless, as far as it was possible, the participants extended their knowledge about both countries and the importance of protecting our water resources, and became more aware of the diversity of our environment. They fully used the opportunity to use English in natural situations, their language improved significantly. A few students still stay in contact with their new friends abroad. Visiting schools and lessons and comparing them with own school system was inspiring not only for children but also for teachers. The Erasmus+ project became for all the participants new experience which greatly enhanced their social competences. The involved students but also very often other pupils and their parents ask questions about continuing the exchange partnership programme and its future. We deeply believe that a successful implementation of this Erasmus+ project will motivate teachers and their students to organize and take part in different activities of this kind.

Project Website

https://www.zssvat.cz/projekty/projekt-erasmus/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 42156 Eur

Project Coordinator

Zakladni skola Svatoplukova 7, Sternberk, prispevkova organizace & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Toråsskolan