We want to apply for a project that would focus on creativity and culture. The reason for this is our experience that the arts and crafts haven´t been prioritized at schools during the recent years, though the industry and commerce want people entering employment to show powers of innovation, initiative and problem solving. We also felt that many young people today don´t know much about their own culture or the culture in the countries of Europe. The aim of our project "Learn, Create, and Communicate" is to improve our pupils key competences like cultural awareness and expression, ICT-skills, and communication. We focus on how to teach our pupils to learn in a more creative way so they can develop their basic academic skills, learn to foster their creativity and to cooperate with others. We are six schools in Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Spain, Italy and Wales who will participate in this project. We represent many different skills like experience in project coordination, e-twinning, ICT-skills, inclusive approaches and evaluation practices. Our approximately 4000 pupils come from various backgrounds and the size of the schools span from 120 to 1700 pupils. We represent six different languages in Europe. We believe that our pupils will benefit greatly from the opportunity of working collaboratively with pupils across Europe. The project "Learn, Create and Communicate" will last for three years. The common theme for all three years is creativity in learning and teaching. The first year we will focus on learning about cultures and learning to cooperate. Pupils will look at the culture of their own country and then make conceptions and comparisons of the cultures in the partner countries. Through activities like exchanging the Culture Box, sewing and collecting a Culture Quilt and singing the Project Song we will invite our European partners into our hearts and begin feel united. We learn to cooperate through games, plays, cooking, sport and making an animation film during the first Learning Activity in Denmark. The second year has focus on creativity and art. We will create contacts with the local artists, art schools and creative companies and look at how creative thoughts can be fostered and used. The teachers will have focus on teaching basic skills in creative ways like using animated learning, movement, music and ICT-skills. We will learn about famous artists in the partner countries and exchange pieces of art produced by pupils during our second Learning Activity in Germany. These will be used for an exhibition in "Kinder Kunst Gallerie" in Wiesbaden, where the pupils will also work closely with artists as art teachers and get inspired. The third year of our project is about communication. Activities like "Fifty-word-play" and "A Day in My Life", will challenge the pupils to find creative ways to communicate. The teachers will exchange materials for teaching languages. Our third Learning Activity in Italy has focus on communication through Virtual Classrooms and and learning basic vocabulary in the languages of the partner countries by working with production of a common on-line dictionary. Our project aims not only to develop the skills of the pupils but also the skills of the teachers. All teachers participating the project will have a possibility to develop their ICT-skills and get inspired teaching "Early English", as each of the six project meetings will include sessions of sharing best practice. All partner schools will work jointly to produce a book "Inspiring Ideas for Teaching Basic Skills" . This book will be published on the internet and it will be accessible for all interested in teaching. We also intend to arrange a Multiplier Event in Iceland sharing our work through practical examples and work shops with teaching professionals beyond our project. We will communicate, collaborate and share project results through e-twinning and our project webpage. Our goal is that our pupils will develop their basic skills including language competences, and learn to solve problems and tasks in a more creative way. Learning this they will become more proactive, employable and responsible citizens who are able to make a positive contribution to making a better Europe.
We wanted to work on a project that would focus on creativity and culture. The reason for this was that the industry and commerce want people entering employment to show powers of innovation, initiative and problem solving, yet we felt that creative subjects haven´t been prioritized at schools. We also felt that even though many young people today are connected across borders through social media, they don´t know much about their own culture or the culture in the countries of Europe. The objective of our project "Learn, Create, and Communicate" was to improve our pupils key competences like cultural awareness and expression, ICT-skills, and communication. We wanted to focus on how to teach our pupils to learn in a more creative way so they can develop their basic academic skills, learn to foster their creativity and to cooperate with others. Our aim was also to develop the skills of the teachers within our project. This we wanted to do through exchange of teaching ideas, education sessions and acting as guest teachers in partner schools during transnational project meetings. The schools and skills of this partnership: Nordre Skole from Viborg, Denmark (coordinating) Brekkuskóli from Akureyri in Iceland (ICT) Blücherschule from Wiesbaden in Germany (culture) CEIP Tomas Ybarra from Tomares-Seville in Spain (e-twinning) IC-Toscanini from Casorate Sempione, Besnate and Arsago in Italy (evaluation) Ysgol Morfa Rhianedd, Llandudno in Wales (inclusion) Our approximately 4000 pupils come from various backgrounds and the size of the schools span from 120 pupils in Wales to 1700 pupils in the group of schools in Italy. "Learn, Create and Communicate" lasted from 2015-2018. The theme for all three years was creativity in learning and teaching. The first year focused on learning about cultures and learning to cooperate. This we did through activities like conceptions and comparison of cultures, creating a project song,making 6 different choreographies into the same piece of music and sewing pieces into a joint Culture Quilt. We arranged Transnational Project Meetings (TPM) in Germany and in Italy and a Learning Activity (LA) in Denmark focusing on collaboration. The second year we worked with creativity and art through activities like collating a joint “60 Inspiring teaching ideas” book, working on a “Famous Artist” in each country, arranging workshops for teachers beyond our project in a Multiplier Event in Iceland, working on a joint Birthday Calendar and inviting guest teachers to our schools. We held a TPM in Wales and in Iceland and a LA in Germany with focus on creativity. The TPM in Wales also included a Headmasters´meeting. The third year of our project focused on communication. We worked with this theme through activities like “Fifty-word-play”-films, exchanging Friendship Day-postcards and explaining what we had learnt with “This is how it works”-films. We arranged a joint English course for teachers within and beyond our project during the TPM in Denmark, a LA in Italy focusing on communication in various ways and evaluated the project in TPM in Spain. Through project activities our pupils have increased their knowledge of their culture and culture in the partner countries. The pupils have developed their transversal skills like sense of initiative and entrepreneurship when taking part/hosting TPMs or LAs. They have become more curious, tolerant and understanding towards other ways of doing things. Some pupils have even developed personal relationships across borders and become more “European”. The pupils and staff have developed their skills of working collaboratively with pupils and staff outside their community. This has also equipped them with the skills of working in international teams.The pupils have become more motivated towards learning of languages through creative approaches. They have also increased their awareness of future life opportunities through intercultural dialogue and working in partnership. Pupils with poor basic skills have become more motivated towards learning through more creative approaches like production of animation films and learning through games and plays. The teachers within the project have strengthened their professional profile of teaching and have learnt new skills by working with production of films, animation films, e-twinning, taking part in joint working and/or learning sessions and acting as guest teachers in partner countries. They have shared lots of teaching ideas through collaboratively produced books. Teachers and pupils will continue to use and develop the ICT skills they have gained during the project. Teachers will share good practice with other teachers at their school and community. Teachers and pupils will continue using the project website and the etwinning site as it will be made public. We have given open access to the collaborative books, and hope that teachers beyond our project will be inspired by our ideas.