St Francis School Cospicua, has launched its first Comenius project together with five other schools from Scotland, Belgium, England, Germany and Poland. The new project is entitled "Developing Health and Welfare Education in the European Primary School".
The aim of this project is to instil awareness about the practical and different issues reflecting students' and teachers' everyday lives - health and welfare education in European countries.
Our first task was to prepare a presentation on the national and local structure of the educational system, together with our school structure and main teaching methods.
All our schoolchildren are involved in this project. A few students sent e-mails to their counterparts directly from their school e-mail accounts. This was done from the school's computer laboratory. Others sent various greeting cards and letters by post with the help of their class teacher. The enthusiasm was great and the children's faces spoke for themselves!
A group of 14 - mostly head teachers and teachers from the six schools - met at Toermalyn Primary School in Stekene, Belgium last November. Most of us already knew each other from the preparatory visit which was held the year before.
Since then, a lot of work has been done by the partner schools. Rudi Ferket, director of Toermalyn School, gave us a warm welcome and introduced us to most of the school staff. It was also a joy to see and hear the Belgian children happily singing and dancing to welcome us. We were also welcomed by the nursery school-children.
We visited the first, second and third classes of the primary school. Here we could observe and discuss with the teachers the various teaching methods used. We also observed children in the playground, entering their classroom and during their lunchtime break. It was a great experience to see how other countries run their daily classroom lives without being stressful.
After the class visits we usually discussed the project. Everyone had the chance to speak about their school methods and following a lengthy discussion, each country representative delivered a presentation on the national and local structure of the educational system.
Present were members from the Belgian Education Department, the mayor, parents and teachers from Toermalyn School.
The children of the fourth classes welcomed us by singing It's a small world and by giving us some of their delicious Belgian chocolate, made specially for us! After class visits, we discussed how we were going to pass on information to each other about staff and the children's healthy diary.
We also decided to set up a school Website with links to each partner school to foster good communication. Other activities were planned for the coming three years.
We were also invited by the mayor at Stekene City Hall. After a warm welcome and a long chat about our countries we had a delicious Flemish dinner typically known as breughel-meal. We also visited Bruges, including an old brewery.
An excellent relationship developed between us and for some of us it was very hard to say goodbye. We all look forward to another project meeting in May.
This was an excellent opportunity for our children to feel closer to and learn from other European children.
We thank the Socrates National Agency for its financial support, Mr Ferket for his kind hospitality and support towards the delegation, the teachers at our school who are actively involved in the project, and also all the parents for their excellent work!