I Społeczna Szkoła Podstawowa
I Społeczna Szkoła Podstawowa im. Unii Europejskiej is an independent primary school, governed by a citizens' association, which offers education to nearly 200 students aged 6-14 (after education system reform of 2017). The school is located in Zamość (population ca.65000) in the predominantly rural area near the Polish eastern border. The town and the surrounding area are characterized by scarce economic activity. The unemployment rate is high and young people tend to leave the region because of poor employment perspectives. That is why students and their parents appreciate any educational activities from the earliest stage aiming at training and improving qualifications as they can be an investment in their future. Our students are very open-minded, active and eager to explore the world around them. They are interested in environmental and scientific issues, ready to deepen their knowledge of the world around them despite poor school facilities. To meet the students and parents’ expectations the school offers a wide variety of educational activities aiming at broadening the students’ competence in the fields of maths, science, history, literature, music, sports, art and foreign languages with English and German as the main ones. Participating in a foreign cooperation program will enable them to improve their practical scientific skills, exchange ideas, solve problems creatively and show them the importance of cooperation fostering understanding and respect for other cultures and nations. The project will increase the teachers’ qualifications on how to encourage students to apply scientific knowledge in everyday life, with emphasis on energy saving issues. It will provide them with necessary tools to introduce innovative methods of teaching into the school curriculum, with special emphasis on teaching entrepreneurial skills incorporated with science. It will overlap with and complement our everyday activities which result from the following priorities of our school: providing high standards of teaching services, arousing students’ interests in various fields of education in spite of very poor facilities, increasing their sense of initiative and digital competence, making them aware of the value of their own and other European cultures and stimulating them to take more active part in local community doings and become more responsible EU citizens.
Instituto Comprensivo Madonna della Camera
Our school „ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO MADONNA DELLA CAMERA” consists of different schools: three kindergartens; three primary schools and three secondary schools. Our schools are in three different towns: Monteparano, Roccaforzata and Faggiano. Our Institute is located in Puglia, in the province of Taranto. The school building consists of 6 blocks. It has 9 kindergarten classrooms, 17 primary classrooms and 12 secondary classrooms; 3 administrators and 1 officer rooms. We have teachers' room, a library, canteen, an archive room. In our region we have a lot of problems with unemployment. Young people often leave the region and the country because they don’t have entrepreneurial skills. Some of our students have also problems with maths and science. They don’t have practical skills and do not know how to solve problems in a creative way. Our region of Taranto is very polluted and ecological problems are very important for us. Taranto was declared a high environmental risk area by the Ministry of Environment because of the pollutants discharged into the air by the factories in the area, most notably the ILVA steel plant. International project dealing with saving the environment is a huge chance for us.
Emäkosken koulu
Emäkosken koulu is a secondary school in Nokia Finland. We have some 470 students from 13 to 16 years (from classes 7 to 9) in our school next school year. A principal and deputy head plus 50 teachers and 3 assistants are working in staff. Heads, teachers and assistants are all paid by the municipality. Our school has two special classes where students are chosen according to tests and interviews: Communication and Media classes and Science and Technology classes. At the ninth grade we have one class Jopo where productive learning methods are used and where students practice at work places one day a week. Our school has also small groups or classes for special needs students.
Agrupamento de Escolas de Vila Nova de Paiva
The “Agrupamento de Escolas de Vila Nova de Paiva” (AEVNP) - Grouping of Schools of Vila Nova de Paiva - is built by four kindergarten school buildings, three primary school buildings, an elementary school and high school. It has around 650 students (ages between 4 to 18), 80 teachers and 45 operational staff. In what concerns the observatory of quality and improvement, o AEVNP joined the Programme of Support and Evaluation of Academic Success (PAASA) and to the Program of Support to the Schools Self-evaluation (PAAE). The grouping of schools is situated in Municipally of Vila Nova de Paiva, a poor social and economic context, where families often deny the children’s right to education. We are also one of the schools participating in the ECO-SCHOOLS project which is an international program of the Foundation for Environmental Education, developed in Portugal since 1996 by ABAE. It aims to encourage actions and recognize the quality work developed by the school, in the ambit of Environmental Education for Sustainability. The program is coordinated at the international, national, regional and school levels. This multilevel coordination allows the confluence of common objectives, methodologies and criteria that respect the specificity of each school in relation to its students and characteristics of the surrounding environment.
Prva osnovna škola Čakovec
Our school is a public school with almost 800 pupils at the age of 6 to 14. It is a primary school. It is located in the north-western part of Croatia, near the Slovenian and the Hungarian border. Our school is currently a part of many international projects like “Safety and mobility for all”, “#codeEU”, “TakeIT Global”, “Hour of code”, eTwinning projects, two Erasmus+ KA2 projects, e-school, etc. Our school is well-computer equipped, various programming tools being used in class; our pupils are constantly encouraged to learn how to program and use ready-made software, research, plan and create their own social media and curation applications. Our school has a very good cooperation with Microsoft and Apple; thus, our school has the status of Apple partners in education. Great importance is attached to the mathematics, programming and robotics. The pupils in our school consistently performed great success in competitions in this area, and informatics teacher Ivana Ružić is the EU Code Week ambassador for Croatia. Our teachers and pupils’ works are regularly presented in public, at various regional, state and international conferences, for which the pupils and their mentors have won many awards and acknowledgments. School in its project activities enjoys great organizational and financial support of local authorities, industry and the wider community. As you know, Croatia is now the youngest member of the EU and we are very open to Europe and would like to be more open to new ideas coming from educational staff from all over Europe.