Mazeikiai Merkelis Rackauskas Gymnasium is situated at the boarder of the country, in the northern part of Lithuania, in Mazeikiai. Our school provides education for about 700 students aged from 15 to 19 years old. 136 students are from the rural background. Many students live in families with low income, some are brought by single an unemployed parent. Our gymnasium is an active school aspiring the interrelate of knowledge and real-life issues. We rejoice at our students’ academic achievements and are incredibly proud of their achievements in national state examinations as well as honorary awards in the Republican olympiads, high results in the Constitution examination. We take pride in economic and regional study paper and literary essay winners and those, having become laureates in the national singing contest ” Dainu Dainele”. The school community is constantly participating in national and international projects concerning the environmental, scientific, social and health issues. Being culturally aware is becoming an important skill to have in both everyday life and in the workplace.That is why our teachers try to motivate students to participate in various activities to find out more about other countries, to learn the benefits of knowing foreign languages, to accept diversity and to create curiosity. In 2016 our students took part in Shakespeare’s workshops with London theatre actors in the festival “Theatre – Nation’s Wings” in Telsiai (a nearby town). To promote various values necessary to a young developing person our school takes part in many national and international campaigns, such as The Christmas of Books, initiated by President Dalia Grybauskaite. Every year a bus from school takes students to the Books Fair in the Capital city to encourage reading by meeting the authors of the books and participating in different workshops. Famous writers, philosophers, lecturers and former students are invited to school to discuss and inspire students on the necessity of acquiring the virtues so important for a sophisticated person. Students’ self-government in school along with the teachers organize ‘Battles of the Brains’ on various topics or commemorating significant dates of the school, country and the world. The ‘DofE’ expedition project promoting tolerance and volunteering, participation in conferences on ‘Tolerant school – protected society’ and art, literature and music projects analyzing the themes of values provide students with an insight of the pieces of art and the connection with values as well as help students expand the horizons of codes of behavours in different situations. The key person of the Lithuanian team – Irena Urboniene, the teacher of English, is an active member of the community and various initiatives. Currently, she is also working on Erasmus+ project “Healthy lifestyle and harmful eating habits in teenagers”.
Santo Ángel de la Guarda School is located in the very north of Spain, by the sea, next to the beach. Our nearly 650 students (pre-primary, primary and secondary) are taught in an old well preserved building of the 17th century. 60% of the students come from a working class background. The other 40% comes from a middle class social context. That’s why this type of project is a great opportunity for most of them to improve their knowledge of foreign languages. It is also a great chance of understanding other ways to live and think. We also have a small amount of students with special needs in the different levels. The main values we want to instil into our students are: empathy, tolerance, happiness, effort and an intercultural spirit. Multiple intelligence, team work and pedagogic innovation are the most relevant aspects we base our education system on. All the students learn English since they start primary education, although they also learn some skills in English when they are younger. When they start secondary education they can choose French as a second foreign language and many of them study it for four years. One of the problems many students explain when they are asked about learning foreign languages is they don´t have many opportunities to speak a foreign language in a native or international environment, therefore our project will be one of those opportunities they are looking for. What are the activities and experiences? In 2000-2001 the school participated in the European Leonardo Da Vinci project, destined to practice foreign languages, learn about new cultures and work in different companies in order to decide their future career. Most years, our students participate in an activity called “week camp”, which is a linguistic immersion camp. In the last three school courses we have been participating in an Erasmus+ project, called Post Art: take part, with schools from Austria, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal and Romania. This is part of the different innovative projects the school is involved in the different educational levels. We use a “nomad pedagogy” i.e. we try to adapt our teaching to a changing society. Nowadays it is necessary for students to react to any sudden situation, to work as a team and to value the richness of different cultures. Some of the skills of our team are: Our team of Erasmus + (Emma Fernández Carneado, Marcos Lasunción Fernández, Pablo García Suárez, Marina Peña Salazar) always try to look for pedagogic innovation. We usually offer our students projects which involve different subjects, skills and multiple intelligence. We speak different foreign languages and have organised cultural exchanges between different schools in our country which are part of the same catholic congregation.
Our school name is Martry Omer Halisdemir Vocational Middle and High School. Our school consist of both grades 5-6-7-8 which is middle school and grades 9-10-11-12 as high school. It is located in the capital, Ankara. Our school was founded as a model vocational religious high school in the educational year of 2016 – 2017. It consists of two units. In the high school unit, the school applies a program based on natural and applied sciences and social studies, in the secondary school it applies an intensive foreign language education program and Koran reciting program. Our school has both indoor and outdoor sports facilities, conference halls, briefing rooms and small mosques both for girls and boys. There are modern classrooms and laboratories. Our school gives the opportunity of staying in the dormitory to the high school students and it supplies all the students with a large and a descent refectory. Everybody in the school can make use of it. OUR PRINCIPLES: We have an understanding which is participative, democratic and in favor of continuous development and change. Every individual accepts this school running philosophy. We have a teaching discipline based on love. It dominates everywhere. We are moving with the understanding of “There are no students who cannot learn.” The teachers follow this motto. In the light of science and on the way of mind; we give priority to the learning by experiencing, in other words, students learn by doing and acting. We follow and apply innovations and technological developments in the field of education and training. Mutual trust among our employees is essential. We believe in the philosophy “We” instead of “I”. Our principle is trustworthiness in our work. We believe that correct and effective communication will enhance the success in education. The views and recommendations of our participants are the driving force behind our school services. In this project we are 2 teachers coordinating the project; our names Sezgin SÖZEN and Esma ERASLAN. We are English teachers in high school. Also, our three e-Twinning projects are accepted and we are working on them,too. (“Illustrated Quotes”,”Feeling towards Europe: a podcast project!” ,” Singing to celebrate the European Day of Languages”)
Private Secondary School ”Patnis” was founded 25 years ago and offers an alternative education for students from the 1st until the 12th grade. There are 38 teachers and 211 students in our school. The aim of our school is to provide positive, creative and motivating environment for all students in the school. We have Latvian students and students with different nationalities in our school. Therefore, English language has been the priority in our school for almost 25 years. We often use cross disciplinary approach in order to provide more qualitative learning content for all our students. We have participated in several students’ exchange projects. This year we have applied for Erasmus learning mobility project for school staff: Content and Language Integrated learning at Primary and Secondary Level.