Learning, teaching, training meetings 2019-2021

Week 46, 11.-15.11.2019

IES Juan Antonio Fernandez Perez, Melilla, Spain: Project planning, introduction to SDGs and critical thinking pedagogy

This meeting will allow us to build on the strong foundation already in place for the project to flourish to discuss and clarify its implementation by reviewing its objectives and calendar. This meeting is vital to the success of the project. Valuable time will also be set aside to observe and explore various practices at the Spanish school lesson observation and pedagogical discussions with staff. Our training focus is on Agenda 2030 and the importance of the SDGs as a whole. We will focus on practical critical thinking techniques that will help us enable students to explore the themes of the project. We will also discuss ways to embed the project into our curricula and discuss the businesses and external partners we may wish to engage with over the duration of the project. We will also discuss setting up the eTwinning project platform and blogs. From September 2019 until the meeting each partner school will:

- hold a staff meeting in school to explain the project

- ask for expressions of interest from staff and students

- undertake a common agreed baseline evaluation of knowledge of SDGs amongst students and staff

- set the logo competition for students

- introduce the SDGs to students

With regards the Spanish school hosting the first event it will also bring the global dimension to the school. During the meeting in Melilla:

- a logo for our project will be displayed and chosen from the logos partner schools will contribute

- speakers will talk about programs taking place in our city to achieve the SDGs:

Mr Paredes, Agricultural Engineer in Environmental Sciences, Coordinator of “Gloria Fortes Farm School”. We will visit the urban gardens.

Ms Moreno, Engineer in Chemistry, Head of the Quality and Natural Environment Division. Studies on an endemic sea gastropod in danger of extinction. The species is emblematic for the Mediterranean biodiversity conservation. We’ll visit Port Authority and see examples of the species.

Mr Bocanegra is the coordinator of the platform “Melilla on a bike", which campaigns to promote less polluting ways of moving around.

Mr Claro is responsible for the area of Nature of the organization “Guelaya”. We will go hiking along Río Nano, where we will enjoy endemic flora and plant trees to reforest Rostrogordo Pines Forest.

We will evaluate poverty in Melilla with European Network for the Fight against Poverty.

As our school is an “Eco-school” we will explain what the project consists of. Our gardening teachers will teach us how to make “compost”.

We will visit Victoria Grande Fortress and Rosario Bastion, awarded for their 100% LED technology and low-consumption energy.

We will visit the old town and the modernist triangle as examples of conservation of our architectural heritage.

We will visit the city incinerator plant which uses the energy of the burnt rubbish for its own functioning and sells the surplus to the local electricity company.

Week 17, 20.-24.4.2020

"Escuela sa de Miranda", Braga, Portugal: Sharing of SDG 14 Water Best Practices

Students and staff will visit the Portugese partner school to share the outcomes of their research into the pollution of oceans SDG task set in Melilla and any actions resulting from their research.  This will be in the form of presentations or videos and possibly debates.  Sharing of outcomes will challenge stereotypes of country issues. Tasks that were agreed in Melilla for each meeting will also be presented/shared during the visit. There will be opportunities to discuss the next school based project activities and any matters arising from partner schools.  Students and staff will take part in various workshops/lectures and visits to places of interest relevant to the oceans theme.  Valuable time will be set aside to explore teaching and learning styles with colleagues at the Portugese school through lesson observation and pedagogical discussions.  This will also be a valuable opportunity to discuss and refine the evaluation process for the project.

Preliminary program for the Meeting in Portugal will include the following:

- Guest speaker - Lecture about Ocean protection – “Steps to a sustainable sealife”  by an expert of the Maritime Coast Guard, responsible for the security of the Portuguese North Sea Coast (maritime law enforcement, environmental protection, fisheries control,…).

- Visit to Porto de Leixões; Getting to know about the project  “Ocean free of residues” carried out by this entity in partnership with the international organization Waste Free Oceans.

- Boat trip along River Douro.

- Visit to the Nau Seiscentista in Vila do Conde, a typical boat from the16th century.

- Protected  Area of Esposende – visit to the beach and walk along the shore (Ecovia Litoral Norte).

- Visit to River Minho Aquamuseum in Vila Nova de Cerveira.

- Visit to the school Museum – learning about the evolution of maritime species.

- Visit to an exhibition focusing on sealife (ancient maps and science books) in the school library.

- Workshops – Art From Waste and Illustration of Maritime Species.

- Lessons observation and pedagogical discussions.

- Theater play based on a literary book related to the ocean.

- Pedagogical games about the theme “The Ocean Is Us” as a reference to our Portuguese history.

- Outdoor activities / sports in the Picoto Park in Braga.

Week 41, 5.- 9.10.2020

"Lycée Antoine St-Exupéry", Les Avirons, La Reunion: Sharing of SDG 1 and best practices

The meeting in Reunion will be the occasion to study more closely the reality of poverty in this ultra-peripheral part of the E.U today, its historical foundation, and how poverty can impact sustainable development. Students will be asked to evaluate the reality of poverty in Reunion as a whole, and in their town/school, to comprehend more closely which statistical indicators can be used and what they mean, and to compare data with partner schools/regions/countries. They will be asked to study the links between this poverty and the historical context of Reunion as a former colony. Also, they will see the close link between poverty and gender issues. They will then be asked to investigate ways to fight poverty at the local level, and to commit to a volunteering project. Buying local will be focused on, as a way to encourage local agriculture and business and its role in fighting poverty. They will meet associations like Chancégal, which work on gender issues and their consequences in society (poverty, violence, harassment). Overconsumption and waste will be seen, and its paradoxical link with poverty. Specific days will be the focus of our activities: World Clean Up Day/International Day for the Eradication of Poverty/International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women/Fet Kaf Abolition of Slavery/ International Women’s Day. Guest speakers will be invited to the meeting: the president of Roulé Mon Zavirons, local representative of the World Clean Up Day; members of the Chancégal association; representatives of local volunteer groups (FondaKtion André Malet) as well as members of parliament and the Mayor of Les Avirons for a more institutional point of view. In the context of the social crisis of the Yellow Vests, local citizens will also be invited to share their points of view and ideas. Visits with our partners will be organized: to historic places of interest that highlight the island’s past as a colony and its impact on today’s society; to the Cuisine Centrale in Les Avirons, and to local markets: this will help study the reality of local sourcing of food products in Reunion. Volunteer groups will be visited. We will also plan to visit or to meet the Citizen Councils that have been recently set up, as well as the Department or Regional Councils.

Week 7, 15.- 19.2.2021

Laanila High School & Svenska Privatskolan, Oulu, Finland: Sharing of SDG 12 best practices

Students and staff will visit the Finnish partner schools to share the outcomes of their research into the consumption SDG task set in Melilla and any actions resulting from their research.  This will be in the form of presentations or videos and possibly debates.  Sharing of outcomes will challenge stereotypes of country issues. Tasks that were agreed in Melilla for each meeting will also be presented/shared during the visit. There will be opportunities to discuss the next school based project activities and any matters arising from partner schools.  Students and staff will take part in various workshops/lectures and visits to places of interest relevant to the consumption theme.  Valuable time will be set aside to explore teaching and learning styles with colleagues at the Finnish schools through lesson observation and pedagogical discussions.

Preliminary program for the Meeting in Finland will include the following:

- Lectures, discussions and workshops at Laanila High School and Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg on SDG 12 Best Practices

- A workshop for recycled clothes/textiles. Students will bring a used piece of clothing to Finland and in a workshop they’ll make something new of it

- A visit to Kiertokaari recycle center and waste combustion center

- A visit to forests nearby, for example Hailuoto or Pilpasuo

- An overnight visit to Pikku-Syöte, Pudasjärvi

- Indoor Wall climbing / Observatory / Snow shoe walking / Bow and Arrow

- The forest trail “Magical forest”

- Geocaching, Fatbiking, Basket Disk Golf

Tasks for the students:

- Plan an educational game/play to play in a forest during the visit to Pikku-Syöte where we will experience the tasks in real life

- Bring a piece of clothing with you to Finland

Guest speakers:

- A tour in a forest guided by a forest expert Anna Taskila

- Ansa Jokiranta: Forest of possibilities School Project in Finland (ansa.jokiranta@forestindustries.fi)

Week 40, 4.- 8.10.2021

Ysgol Dyffryn Taf, Wales: Sharing of SDGs Decent Work, evaluation & planning

In Wales the project themes will be integrated into the humanities curriculum for years 7, 8 & 9 in addition to being focused on by the Erasmus focus group in Years 10-13. They will also learn about the history behind key dates like international workers day on the 1st May each year and such key dates will be celebrated on a whole school basis to maximise project impact.

The focus for the Wales meeting will be better work for all. In preparation for the Wales visit we will work with the NGOs Oxfam and Antislavery in addition to the local coastguard to raise awareness amongst pupils of modern day slavery and trafficking issues in Wales and Europe/the Wider World, and what constitutes fair work for all. They will work with the charities to promote awareness of the issues to the School Community and they will write letters to their Local Assembly Member to raise awareness of the issue and urge them to promote fair work in the constituency area and at Wales level. Students from all visiting countries will be asked to prepare videos raising awareness of fair work issues in their respective countries to be shared during the Wales visit and guest speakers will be invited to the meeting to take part in lectures, discussions and workshops on Fair Work with the other attendees. Students will also take part in an art workshop focused on promoting fair work that can then be promoted in all schools.

During the Wales visit we will visit St Fagans, the Museum for Welsh Life to see how worker conditions in Wales have changed throughout history. We will take a tour of the the new building that was opened in 2019 to learn of their drive towards achieving environmental sustainability. We will also visit the Welsh Assembly to learn about the environmentally sustainable design of the building and visit the chambers. During the visit the students will deliver a letter to the Assembly Members written jointly by each of them outlining their wishes for the SDG goals we will have studied as part of the project.

A new Erasmus+ Project starting August 2019 - Introductions

Coordinator: Laanila High School 

The aim of the project is not only to introduce UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals to all our students, teachers, staff, and whole school community, but also to ambitiously implement a cornucopia of best practice by uniting our European schools in action. 

During the three-year-project we will introduce all the 17 Global Goals, focus on four of them and "create an army of goalkeepers” who will spread the change-choices even broader within our countries and Societies. 

The objectives are to develop pedagogy for critical thinking to equip students to research and actively work towards tackling the following four SDGs whilst developing critical thinking, communication, digital literacy and foreign language skills: 

Goal 1: Poverty 

Goal 8: Decent Work 

Goal 12: Responsible Consumption 

Goal 14: Ocean Pollution 

Partners: 

"Laanila High School", Oulu, Finland 

"Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg", Oulu, Finland

"Lycée Antoine St-Exupéry", Les Avirons, La Reunion  "Escuela sa de Miranda", Braga, Portugal 

"IES Juan Antonio Fernandez Perez", Melilla, Spain "Ysgol Dyffryn Taf", Whitland, Wales 

Introductions of our schools:

"Laanila High School", Oulu, Finland 

Laanilan Lukio is a high school of approximately 330 students and 25 teachers in the city of Oulu. Laanila is a member of the certified Green Flag Schools, UNESCO ASPnet Schools and CertiLingua Schools. We have an active Green Flag and UNESCO ASPnet group of students who plan and implement activities related to sustainable development tutored by teachers. 

Our recent themes have included co-operation with the communities in the neighbourhood, waste recycling and reducing energy consumption. Since 2011 we have also taken part in Comenius and Erasmus+ collaboration in three separate projects with altogether twenty-five other European countries. Our mutual partnerships in increasing students’ awareness on ecological as well as volunteering issues have been truly rewarding, beneficial and educating experiences. In addition to the Green Flag and UNESCO group, we have an active students' union which has enabled the students to improve their social environment by creating an encouraging, dissimilarities approving social atmosphere. The school has taken part in many projects related to active citizenship, for example organizing charity, taking part in the racism-free events in the City of Oulu and volunteering for kintergartens, old people's houses, primary schools and other local actors. We also offer courses in volunteering. The courses have been led by our own teachers and earlier also by an Oulu based Deaconess Institute, and the work is done for several local voluntary organizations such as The Red Cross, among others. The courses have consisted of theoretical studies and voluntary work during which students may e.g. work as a friend or a support person for mentally ill youth or single parent families, read newspapers for the elderly, go for walks with mentally disabled or visually impaired or help immigrants and refugees. Last year's course focused on senior citizens with whom students and teachers sang songs, played games, held quizes and completed "My Way" book on the life of each senior citizen involved in the project.

Our school can set an example for the other partner schools in volunteering for the good of the old and the young, the physically and mentally disabled as well as for the immigrants and refugees in our city as we already have experience of this from different school activities in previous years. Also the projects and good practices we have implemented with the university exchange students (Courses on Global Education) and the local Community College will be shared with our European school partners in this project. 

We have set up a team of ten teachers and we will  be responsible for co-ordinating the project as we have the necessary managerial and communications experience of this from previous Erasmus+ projects. The team of teachers involved in this project includes a wide range of relevant expertise including language/math teaching, drama, music+art, sport, IT, student counselling, institutional evaluation and school management. 

"Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg", Oulu, Finland

Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg (SPSU) is a Swedish-speaking school in the city of Oulu in Northern Ostrobothnia. The school was founded in 1859 and is one of the oldest schools in Finland. It is the northernmost school in Finland with Swedish as the language of instruction. The school has approximately 240 students aged 6 to 18. The school works in close cooperation with Svenska barnträdgården (Swedish-speaking kindergarten) which is located on the same premises. Many students start their schooling already in the kindergarten, culminating in a matriculation examination at the gates of adulthood.

"Lycée Antoine St-Exupéry", Les Avirons, La Reunion

Saint-Exupéry High School is situated in Les Avirons in south-west Reunion Island, an overseas French department in the Indian ocean. There are about 1100 students attending academic and vocational classes. Saint-Exupéry High School also includes a Post Graduate Vocational College with 100 students aged 18-22.

The school offers an international teaching environment with specialist classes in English and Spanish. These are optional courses for motivated students who wish to extend their foreign language learning, through the study of economics and social sciences in English, or history and

geography in Spanish. Independent certification through Cambridge University and the Cervantes Institute attest the level of proficiency of these students. Each year, the school receives native speaking language assistants who promote an authentic linguistic and cultural approach.

Regular exchanges with Australia (biannual school tours) are organized, as well as regular visits to metropolitan France and Germany.

The social context of our school is comparatively good. However, there are some educational issues here, as all over the island - like illiteracy, gender issues, ethnic determinism leading to inequality - that are globally more important than in most regions of metropolitan France. In fact, as an ultra-peripheral region of the E.U, Reunion’s geographical situation in the heart of the Indian Ocean makes it the only European region (along with Mayotte) in the southern hemisphere and probably the most isolated. In this way, our students hardly feel part of Europe and this project, by making them exchange with other Europeans, will give them a closer approach and a better inclusion with the mainland. Choosing to focus on SDG Goal 1 Eradication of Poverty makes sense – in an island where more than 40% of the population lives below the poverty line and unemployment is nearly 25%, we stand as one of the poorer regions of the E.U: addressing these issues is vital for our student community. The wider range of the SDG Goals is also a crucial part of our teaching: Réunion is fully concerned with sustainable development at all levels: political, social, environmental, educational. This project will be led by an experienced team of teachers and administration staff, who have already conducted a previous wide-ranging Erasmus+ project successfully. Expertise is shared, and does not depend on one single element but on a combination of staff. 

"Escuela sa de Miranda", Braga, Portugal 

Sá de Miranda School is situated in Braga, one of the youngest cities in Europe (European Youth Capital in 2012) but also with a vast historical and cultural heritage in the North of Portugal. The school has recently aggregated with a former group of schools located in a periferal area, being the head-school of the present School Group Sá de Miranda, which includes all learning levels, from kindergarten to high school.

Sá de Miranda school dates back to the 19th century, and has played an important role in the region ever since. It started as a boarding school for boys, but has been a state school for 183 years. It is now predominantly attended by teenagers from the outskirts of the city and surrounding rural areas.

The total number of students is around 2250, 770 of whom attending Scientific-Humanistic courses, 213 Vocational courses, 1228 Basic Education and 40 Adult Education in the evening.

Trying to cope with the challenges of such a heterogeneous school population, the institution’s priority is to foster the holistic development of all its members, by promoting personal and academic growth. Thus, its main goal is to educate proactive, creative and critical citizens, by providing high quality teaching, by helping students discover their talents and develop their competences and acquired knowledge, and by promoting a scientific and cultural exchange within the educational community. To reach these goals, the life of the institution must be based on a set of underlying values, such as the pursuit of excellence, integrity, solidarity, cooperation and reciprocity, effectiveness and good resource management.

"IES Juan Antonio Fernandez Perez", Melilla, Spain

IES Juan Antonio Fernández Pérez is a high school which teaches Compulsory Secondary Education to students aged 12-16, Baccalaurate to students aged 16-18 and vocational training in gardening, cooking, restaurant, travel agency and social integration. At the same time, we have a class intended for the inclusion of migrants into the regular system of education.Most of our students are bereber in origin (70%),many of them coming from disadvantaged areas, so some of them are prone to social exclusion and others are pupils with special education needs. At the age of 16, when students are finishing their compulsory education stage, there is a high rate of drop-offs from the educative system and 30% of students just leave education without their CGSEs or any kind of academic or vocational qualification. The participation of our centre in this project means one step more in our constant fight against early leaving and abandon from the Spanish system of education. 

In the current process of internationalization of our center, every joint action of our High School with another European centers is focused in acquiring different strategies to fight early leaving from the educative system, promoting social and cultural inclusion of immigrants in our center and enhancing school performance in our students from disadvantaged backgrounds or cultural or achievement gaps.

Being our center situated in Melilla, a Spanish city on the northern coast of Africa with 80.000 inhabitants, sometimes gives us a feeling of isolation from European mainstream pedagogic and didactic innovations so the participation in this project is a fine way for students and teachers to became aware of Europe, otherwise they would not stand a chance to get to know and enjoy other European educative experiences.In other words, they can by these projects,feel both the European and their own dimension. 

"Ysgol Dyffryn Taf", Whitland, Wales 

Dyffryn Taf is an 11-18 school in rural West Wales. 864 pupils attend the school which caters for all abilities, offering a wide choice of academic and vocational courses.  The school has a very large catchment area over 400 square miles drawing from a predominantly agricultural setting. 8,6% of pupils receive free-school meals and there are 17% of students on the SEN register.  The school is a naturally bilingual school with 18,8% of pupils speaking Welsh as the predominant language at home, and 19% speak Welsh fluently.  There is a Welsh medium form in each year group in key stage 3 and Welsh medium teaching is also available in humanities subjects in this key stage. The school caters for pupils representing a full range of academic ability and socio-economic background. There are currently 105 pupils with special educational needs, including 25 who have statements.

School priorities include raising standards in literacy, improving the quality of teaching and learning, developing middle managers, improving attendance and learner autonomy- we feel that involvement in this project will assist in meeting these priorities in an exciting new pan - European context.

The school takes an active and leading role in international work and bringing the global dimension to life for our students. We feel this to be particularly important as the school is located in an area where there is currently very little ethnic diversity. Our learners will almost certainly have to leave to find better employment opportunities and we feel it is important to encourage them to broaden their horizons as early as possible and embrace  and enjoy diversity.