First Meeting in Italy

by Tom Pikeproject co-ordinator

• • •

The first meeting of all the partners in our project took place at Anagni Italy in November. Three Teachers from Spain, two from France, one from Scotland met with teachers from Italy.

The project had a slow start as we were six countries in the beginning, but two were not accepted into the project, and Spain were on a reserve list. The teacher contact in Italy was moved to another school during the summer, leaving only France and Scotland to proceed. Eventually Italy found new teacher contacts and Spain were accepted into the project.

PARTNERS PLAN FOR THE TERMDuring our first group meeting we discussed changes to the project, as we have fewer countries involved in the plan. We also looked at the work we needed to do this term.

We had a look at the new Blog and Discussion board to enable us to display our work and communicate with each other regularly. The blog and board

have been running very well and are important tools for our regular communication and display of project work.

Teachers regularly visit the Board to keep in touch with new progress, contact each other, share ideas and plan for coming activiities. It has been very successful so far.

The Blog has also been successful, in that each country has used it to display results of activities that pupils have been involved in. For example to introduce the project to all our pupils a logo competition was suggested where pupils from each country design a logo for the blog. Designs could be uploaded

New Friends discuss Project at Lunch

MEETING THE MAYOR In Anagni we were all taken to meet the Mayor. There were speeches and a presentation, followed by a buffet lunch, and a tour of historic places.

WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL All the teachers from France, Spain and Scotland were given a wonderful welcome by staff and pupils at Guido Pofi Primary School.

GUIDO POFI PRIMARY after a welcome of singing, speeches and play done extremely well in English, by the pupils we were given a tour of the school. Here we meet a teacher of younger pupils and her class.

OUR COMENIUS PROJECTSEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2011 - SUMMARY OF PROGRESS - TERM 1

BRINGING A EUROPEAN DIMENSION TO OUR SCHOOLS

FRANCE - ITALY - SCOTLAND - SPAIN

First Meeting in

Italy

(continued)

by teachers and when all designs have been uploaded, everyone can vote for which ever design they think best represents our countries working together, and the project activities. There have been many entries added to the Blog, all of them are very well done, with some very exceptional designs with great detail and thought. Well done to all the pupils who have taken part and to the staff who have worked with them and encouraged them in the activity. Voting is underway with many logo designs collecting votes. Many comments have also been added by visitors.

The blog and board are located at our own domain

http://www.com3nius.eu

http://www.com3nius.eu/board

A Winter Greetings activity was discussed and each school would use Skype to

communicate and sing songs to each other.

Schools were to test their Skype connections to ensure that they worked well enough.

Tests were done and connections were made, some being better than others, but dates were arranged and all schools managed to sing songs to each other and wish each other a Merry Christmas.

Everyone did very well and enjoyed the experience of hearing well known songs being sung in various languages. Pupils in all schools also made some wonderful Christmas and New Year cards, and sent them to our partners.

Pupil contact by email was also discussed. It was suggested that we used a service called ePals. Each

AROUND ANAGNI

The original Coat of Arms of Anagni , which is housed in the Mayor’s office.

The Colosseum in Rome, during a trip to see some of the local historic buildings and attractions.

GUIDO POFI PRIMARY ANAGNI ITALY

The very old original keys to the city of Anagni, which are kept on display in the Mayor’s office.

The youngest pupils at Guido Pofi Primary School enjoy the November sunshine of around 22C, in their outdoor place area. Scottish pupils enjoy singing songs

and dancing to a Christmas song with pupils from Italy.

Technology Makes the European Dimension Happen

VIDEO CONFERENCES

FRANCE AND SCOTLAND

Ecole Primaire Vandeins and Ednam Primary School first came together through ePals about three years ago.

We were both looking for partners to start communicating through Skype. Our pupils were able to talk to each other through the conference, listening and talking in each others language, with native speakers, and all without leaving the classroom.

In the first year we had great success, but we were unable to continue in the second year. We started again last year and have continued in this project. We have had two classes from Vandeins talking with pupils from Ednam. The activities in the beginning were to introduce ourselves. After that we engaged in a variety of games leading up to Christmas Bingo and Picture card game, involving recognition of festive symbols. The pupils have thoroughly enjoyed the experiences, and look forward to the next. It’s too early to say what effect we are having on their language learning, but we can comment on their

school would register and make pupil email accounts. Pupils from each country could write to each other. Epals has a built in translator, so pupils could communicate in their native language. Both incoming and outgoing pupils’ mail can be monitored by staff, so the service is very safe.

This activity has brought our pupils closer and into direct contact with each other, and added another European dimension to work in our schools. Italy and Spain have made contact, and France and Scotland have also sent mail to each other. Next term we will each contact another of our partners.

INTRODUCING OUR SCHOOLSOur first school activity after the targeted work outlined above, was to introduce our schools to the staff and pupils of our partner countries. Information about our pupils, classes, teachers, the building and grounds around the school. Each school has used various media types to share information about their schools, and have displayed this work on the Blog.

Our next activity is to compile information about our locality and make the information available for visitors or tourists, on our blog and through a leaflet. The information might be useful to local tourist offices.

NEXT MEETINGS

6 - 10 FebruaryVandeins

France

23 - 27 April

Ednam Scotland

A Video Conference between pupils of France and Scotland, engaging in an activity introducing themselves through questions and answers in both languages.

LOGO DESIGNS

THE FIRST MEETING ANAGNI ITALY

The first meeting of all the partners took place at Guido Pofi Primary School in Anagni. It was also the first time that some teachers met during the visit.

We discussed necessary changes in our plan, due to having fewer schools in our project than when we first started. We also looked at the blog and board, which were to be our

main means of communication and co-ordination. Future visits were planned and projects up to our next meeting in February were made clearer.

A Logo by Jiayu Mao from Spain

enthusiam to learn languages. This has extended into learning words and phrases of Italian, Spanish and English, as during our Winter Greetings with each school we learned how to greet them in their language. We are finding ways of using technology to make this easier and quite natural, through quick translators, that even speak the words. We have translators on our Blog and Bulletin Board.

The next Video Conference between France and Scotland will be during the week that all the partners will be in Vandeins. We will be involved in a group activity where pupils from each school ask for various classroom items using their own language, and the other pupils have to listen carefully and retrieve the items as quickly as possible to win points for their group.

A Logo by Juliette from France

A Logo by ALESSIA  C.

from Italy

A Logo by Morven from

Scotland