Johnny Cosmo at Junior School, Sacred Heart

All the children of the Junior School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, St Julian's, have been participating in a Comenius project for the past three years with schoolchildren from Ireland, Romania, Italy and Greece, the co-ordinator country.

As the children in the partner schools range from pre-schoolers to top primary classes, it was agreed that the protagonist of the project was to be a bear called Johnny Cosmo. It is Johnny's job to travel around the participating countries learning about their different customs, traditions, culture, literature, history and geography. The aim is to make the children familiar with their European schoolmates and so promote better and fuller understanding of each other.

At the introductory meeting held in Milan in 2001, it was decided that Johnny was to be presented to the children in a variety of roles they could easily associate with. Thus, during the first year, the Sacred Heart girls worked on the topic 'Johnny the Guide'. Accompanied by their mascot bear dressed in the school colours, the girls, from Years 1 to 6 went on visits to various places of interest around Malta.

The girls wrote about their experiences and this information was collected into a booklet. A member of the staff, Mrs C. Ciscaldi, prepared a separate booklet about the history of the school. This work was then presented to each of the partner countries at a meeting in Greece in September 2002.

Mrs Ciscaldi and Mrs M.A. Schembri spent a delightful week in Volos, Greece, as guests of the fourth primary school, Nea Ionia. A full and varied programme of activities was prepared by Emi Rizopoulo, the Greek co-ordinator. The Maltese teachers were taken on cultural excursions in Athens and in Volos and could see some of the work prepared by the Greek schoolchildren.

During the various meetings, a plan of action for the 2002-3 scholastic year was drawn up. It was decided that from September to December, the schools would work on the topic 'Johnny the Writer'. From February to June, Johnny would take on the role of 'Cook'. The material to be included and the length of the booklets were also agreed upon. It was also decided to compile a workbook consisting of exercises based on the information collected. Between June 30 and July 6 last year another two teachers from the Junior School, Ms M. Said and Ms N. Vassallo, took part in a third Comenius Project meeting. This time Elena Mosori, headmistress of the 9th Primary School in Targoviste, Romania, hosted the meeting. A full programme of activities and various information exchange sessions were organised.

During the first meeting, each representative gave an evaluation of the past year's projects. The children's work on the two topics 'Johnny the Writer' and 'Johnny the Cook' was presented. A decision was taken on the topics for the following scholastic year, 2003-4. It was agreed by all the partner countries that from September to December the children would prepare work on 'Johnny the Ecologist'. Since 2004 would see the opening of the Olympics in Athens, it was considered very appropriate that the topic to be worked on between February and June would be 'Johnny the Athlete'.

At the next meeting, proposals on the development of these two topics were made and discussed. Other activities were suggested and these had to be studied and approved by the teachers of the schools involved. On the recommendation of the Maltese partner, all the representatives committed themselves to promote communication between the students of the five different schools by e-mail. Target dates were set to compile booklets about each topic and to send them to each partner school. It was also decided that Ireland was to host the next meeting for June 25-30 this year.

Several sight-seeing tours and other activities were organised to enable the visitors from the partner schools to become familiar with the culture, heritage and customs of the host country, Romania. Places of interest such as the People's House (better known as Ceausescu's Residence), Dracula's Castle and King Mihai's Castle were visited. A meeting was also set up with the mayor of Targoviste who later hosted the Project partners to a dinner party.

The Comenius project in Targoviste is very much a community project as was shown by the Johnny Cosmo Night, a programme of activities organised by the staff of the 9th Primary School with the participation of all the kindergarten children and their parents. This event was televised and the guests from the partner countries were interviewed.

Soon another two members of staff of the Junior School of the Sacred Heart Convent will be attending a meeting hosted by St Anne's Day Nursery School in Cork, Ireland.

In June 2005 the Maltese school will repay the hospitality and Johnny Cosmo's travels will come to an end at the Junior School, St Julian's.