Our proposed project has three primary aims; 1) To encourage disaffected students to remain in school 2) To provide project activities which stretch the most able 3) To promote girls' awareness of opportunities beyond school and it has three secondary aims; •To promote a sense of European citizenship and an awareness of European institutions, •To holistically develop the participant's lifelong learning prospects through building a range of transferable skills such as entrepeneurship, communication skills, engagement in mobility, self organising, independent and collaborative learning and a healthy lifestyle, •To strengthen the academic achievement of all participants. The vehicle through which these diverse and ambitious objectives would be realised was to link them by creating a fictional newspaper. The partnership agreed in principle to aim to produce 9 editions of the newspaper during the lifetime of the project but we would add 3 supplements which focus on the following: These supplements would highlight 3 themes, society, science and change; Eurocity ; This would be a project which places the emphasis on designing a new European city, although largely a town planning geography project it would examine the linguistic diversity of Europe, European institutions and a study of what makes a city a place to live as opposed to a collection of buildings. Science in Europe : This supplement would look at the scientific development of Europe from Al-Murad to the CERN, each partner would focus on one scientist/mathematician from their own region and one from a partner region Revolution in Europe; The emphasis on revolution would be less associated with the overthrow of kings and tyrants and more concerned with the development of thought , commerce, technology, science and culture. The remaining "newspapers" would follow a format that would see each school assuming overall editorial control for that edition of the newspaper and would be dated to embrace a key period from that country's History. The UK would edit the 11th Century edition, a date which would include the Norman Conquest of England. The headlines regarding the lead up to, the event itself and the aftermath would be reported by the UK school as headline domestic news. Simultaneously, all other partners would create an article about the events in their countries, during the 11th century. Netherlands Spain Slovenia Croatia Norway France Poland Italy Topics to be covered will be Art, Culture, Science, Belief Cookery, Technology. The content is limited only by our imaginations. The first edition of the Newspaper would introduce the partnership and spotlighting each the schools within the partnership including links to the school website and the etwinning twin space. It would also feature the results of the project logo designs competition. In addition to the sections exemplified above, the some or all of the newspapers would include the following sections ; Sport. previews or reports of mini Olympics, the Olympic committee would devise sports that cater for everybody through changing rules to embrace mixed ages and mixed abilities and to include a "fair play" award. The participation in the sports event would include students acting as competitors or journalists. The sports sections will also include sections on getting fit for sport. Cuisine ;Each newspaper would have a recipe section where students from the one country would deliver the recipes from their country. Business News; Reports on Young Enterprise schemes in various schools. Obituaries; Puzzles/fun corner, climate studies, education, Competitions; We will stage Events Art Exhibition Mock Parliamentary Debate Simulation of competitive tender for buildings for Eurocity Drama Show Music Show Sporting Competition Cookery event Photographic exhibition Creation of school Euro parliament Educational Workshops Writing for publication CLIL Weather Analysis and data recording Star school at Kielder observatory Visnjan observatory School for gifted and talented Documentary results Recording weather data Hydrology issues in each region E books featuring cuisine Publication describing best practice for CLIL Publication of sporting coaching manuals Records of parliamentary debate and conclusions Scripts and analysis of drama shows Good practice guides for young enterprise in schools Information pack on stock market trading Electronic Results E Twinning Twin Space Small web sites e-books you-tube records of events
Context/Background This project grew out of an earlier Comenius project called "Spirit of Hope", the partner schools have remained largely the same. We have lost a partner school from Denmark and Turkey, but acquired a partner from Slovenia. This project grew out of a wish to sustain the earlier project, to maintain a partnership which collectively, institutionally and personally was characterised by a warmth and sense of collaboration between us. We extended our earlier project to start looking at topics which interested us and excited our students. Objectives Our proposed project had three primary aims; 1) To encourage disaffected students to remain in school 2) To provide project activities which stretch the most able 3) To promote girls' awareness of opportunities beyond school and it had three secondary aims: •To promote a sense of European citizenship and an awareness of European institutions, •To holistically develop the participant's lifelong learning prospects through building a range of transferable skills such as entrepreneurship, communication skills, engagement in mobility, self-organising, independent and collaborative learning and a healthy lifestyle, •To strengthen the academic achievement of all participants. The vehicle through which these diverse and ambitious objectives was realised was by linking them by through the creation of a series of magazines. The partnership agreed to produce 9 editions of the newspaper during the lifetime of the project but we added 3 supplements which focus on the following: society, science and change. Eurocity: this was to a project which placed the emphasis on designing a new European city, although largely a town planning geography project it was to examine the linguistic diversity of Europe, European institutions and study what made a city a place to live as opposed to a collection of buildings. Science in Europe: This supplement was planned to look at the scientific development of Europe from Al-Murad to the CERN, each partner was to focus on one scientist/mathematician from their own region and one from a partner region Revolution in Europe; The emphasis on revolution was to be less associated with the overthrow of kings and tyrants and more concerned with the development of thought, commerce, technology, science and culture. The remaining "newspapers" were planned to follow a format that would see each school assuming overall editorial control for that edition of the newspaper and would be dated to embrace a key period from that country's History. The UK would edit the 11th century edition, a date which would include the Norman Conquest of England. The headlines regarding the lead up to, the event itself and the aftermath would be reported by the UK school as headline domestic news. Simultaneously, all other partners would create an article about the events in their countries, during the 11th century. Topics which were covered were Art, Culture, Science, Belief Cookery, Technology. The first edition of the newspaper was originally planned to introduce the partnership and spotlight each the schools within the partnership including links to the school website. It was also intended to feature the results of the project logo designs competition. We wanted the newspapers to represent as far as possible, the format of most modern newspapers and some or all to include the following sections The newspapers would include sport. previews and reports of mini Olympics, It was planned that our students would form an Olympic committee which would devise sports that catered for everybody through changing rules to embrace mixed ages and mixed abilities and to include a "fair play" award. The participation in the sports event would include students who would either be competitors or journalists. Cuisine: Each newspaper was to have a recipe section where students from the one country would deliver the recipes from their country. Business News; It was planned that the magazines would report on Young Enterprise schemes in various schools. Obituaries; Puzzles/fun corner, climate studies, education, Competitions; We planned to stage a series of events such as: Art Exhibition Mock Parliamentary Debate Simulation of competitive tender for buildings for Eurocity Drama Show Music Show Sporting Competition Cookery event Photographic exhibition Creation of school Euro parliament Educational Workshops Writing for publication CLIL Weather Analysis and data recording Star school at Kielder observatory Visnjan observatory School for gifted and talented Documentary results Recording weather data Hydrology issues in each region E books featuring cuisine Publication describing best practice for CLIL Publication of sporting coaching manuals Records of parliamentary debate and conclusions Scripts and analysis of drama shows Good practice guides for young enterprise in schools Information pack