EGT

The last Project meeting was held in London. 20 teachers from the different schools involved in this partnership and students form Croatia, Turkey and Poland participated at this meeting. The host school had the following activities scheduled: On March, 5 we visited the UCL Academy (http://www.uclacademy.com/). This is a newly-opened secondary state school that receives the students from Holy Trinity CE Primary School. UCL Academy is a school with an educational project based on a methodology of constructivist teaching. These working methods are supported on “learning by doing”, which stimulates students’ creativity and autonomy. This is a model building, characterized by wide and open spaces. In this school we were able to have contact with some of the classes and observe the teaching and learning dynamics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSafC5jHeDM

On the same day, we visited another teaching facility: Swiss Cottage School http://swisscottage.camden.sch.uk/.  This is also a model state school, located in the district of Camden. This school works with children with special needs whose age varies from 2 to 19. These needs are both physical and of emotional, behavior and communication order; some of the children have disorders from the autism spectrum. In this school, the methodology is based on tutoring, which encourages students to assume an active and responsible role in their learning process. On the afternoon of March, 5, we had the opportunity of attending a seminar about entrepreneurship. A representative of University College of London (UCL) explained to us how they are motivating school-children to become entrepreneurs.  They established the “Citrus Saturday” project, in partnership with several schools across the UK. Staff and students from UCL volunteer for the project and teach secondary and now primary-age pupils how to set a lemonade and orange juice business. With this project, the students learn basic notions of business, food hygiene, etc. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0214/citrus_saturday_holy_trinity_primary_school_06022014

On March, 6, all the partner schools made their presentations for the student assembly of Holy Trinity School, explaining how the project was being developed in their schools. In the afternoon, we visited the centre of London and had a tour of the National Gallery. On March, 7, the host school organized a classroom activity based on the topic: “How to set up a business in a day”. http://www.edventuring.org/listofedventures/business All the classes were organized for this challenge and we attended a full school day. The teachers from our school spent the day with the 6th grade. Using a constructivist methodology, the students were oriented by their teacher to create a souvenir company, focusing on basic notions of business and finance.  http://enablingenterprise.org/archives/6586

http://enablingenterprise.org/primary/lessons/step3

On the last day, we visited the city centre again and also the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Site. http://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/the-park/plan-your-visit/park-map

Throughout this project meeting, the teachers debated the activities around entrepreneurship being undertaken in each of the schools. We discussed the activities that had already been carried out and scheduled the activities that have to be developed before Easter. In order to maintain long distance contact and to share the project’s activities, our school (EBS Mouzinho da Silveira) opened a work space in the school’s moodle platform: http://ebims-m.ccems.pt/course/view.php?id=105. We were also in charge of creating a common page online, where the schools will showcase the activities undertaken: http://deoestevao1.wix.com/egtalent

This was a very productive experience because, through the debate and sharing of cultural experiences, we were able to absorb and import good methods to our school, share different working methodologies and understand how each school is organizing the project’s activities. The next project meeting will be held in our school, between April, 28, and May, 2. We consider this type of activity to be very enriching since this sharing allows us to understand how other European schools are organized, which teaching methods they use in the classroom and which activities they develop with the students. The programme of this project meeting enabled us to have various experiences, allowing us to learn a lot, as the spirit of this project professes – a life-long and beyond borders learning process, as was seen by the Czech educator and pedagogue Jan Amos Comenius.

 

 

 

 

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There were also activities that targeted the knowledge of the natural local surroundings, namely a visit to Pamukale’s Natural Park and to the ancient city of Hierapolis. Pamukale’s Natural Park, in southeast Turkey, is built by a set of natural thermal springs that form several layered pools. The Romans built in Pamukale, in the II century B.C., a grand thermal city that would later receive the visit of the first Christian apostles.

We also visited the ruins of the ancient roman city of Hierapolis, which stretches for several miles surrounding Pamukale with theatres, forums and a particularly interesting Christian necropolis with hundreds of tombs, some of them half buried by limestone. Hierapolis Pamukale was declared a world heritage site, by UNESCO http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/485.

In this Project meeting, the teachers chose the logo and the mascot that will represent this Project. All the pressing issues were debated, namely the activities done by each school, all abiding to the theme of entrepreneurship. The teachers made a balance of the activities that had already been finished and decided on the activities that will be done until Christmas and New Year. They also scheduled the web conferences for each of the partner schools and decided on the best way for long distance communication between students and teachers. EBS Mouzinho da Silveira opened a work space on the school’s moodle platform to establish this type of communication and to divulge the project’s activities: http://ebims-m.ccems.pt/course/view.php?id=105. It also our school’s responsibility to create a common online space to divulge these activities.

Still during this meeting the hosting school enabled the working group to have a guided tour of Antalya and a 2 km hike at Yanartas. In Yanartas, a hill located in Çirali, in the province of Antalya, there are natural flames that never go out and ignite from the rocks due to the presence of natural methane gas.

This experience was very productive to us because, through the debate and sharing of cultural experiences, we were able to take in and import good practices into our school, share different working methods and also understand the way each school is organizing internally the project’s activities.

We consider this type of activities to be very enriching because, through sharing, we can understand the way European schools are organized, the methods used in classes and the activities developed with the students.  

In our opinion, once again, the meeting’s programme allowed us  to experience a wide range of experiences and learn in the way advocated by this project: a lifelong learning, a learning beyond borders, as was designed by the Czech pedagogue Jan Amos Comenius.