“Highway to Health” is an Olympic journey through 5 countries to raise awareness of students in the field of health. Different key competences will be enhanced by sharing good practices and by learning from strengths of the 5 partnerschools. Our strategic partnership is formed by schools from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Slovakia and Spain. The three priorities of the project are the improvement in the acquisition of competences (i.e. digital, cultural, social…), working on inclusion and the awareness of our European heritage through the topic of health. We will improve our skills setting objectives on five health aspects, our five Olympic rings: - First ring: healthy physical activities - using digital competences - Second ring: healthy environment - using cultural awareness competences - Third ring: sustainable mobility - using foreign language learning competences - Fourth ring: healthy food - using learning competences - Fifth ring: mental health and well-being - using social and civic competences Three of the schools have worked together in different projects and have learnt from each other to improve teaching and learning methods. After an analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, we identified the need to continue our collaboration focusing on health and well-being. We agreed that we need to improve some health aspects related to our students’ routines. One of the motivations to choose this topic is the diversity of the three partners which allows us to share good practices using several key competences. To add a new dimension to the project we enriched our partnership with a school from Slovakia and a Greek school dealing with special needs students. These schools will enrich our partnership with their own fields of expertise. Integrating diversity students will be an essential aspect of the project. The health topic is highly relevant and easily accessible for the diversity of students. Additionally we will focus on social inclusion in each of the meetings (integrating all students in the different activities). We will also highlight our European heritage: Our Olympic journey on the Highway to Health will start near Barcelona - an Olympic city - and will end in the Greece, the cradle of the Olympics and the European civilisation. Our Highway will include stops in aspects that are related to our shared culture and values – sports, environment, mobility, food and well-being. In order to achieve our aim we have established a defined pattern for each aspect we would like to improve: Step 1: Preparatory work at each school on the aspect we will deal with in each meeting, shared online. Step 2: Teachers and students (Olympic Health ambassadors) attend a learning event at the host school. They focus on the particular strength of the host school on the field of health and on a learning aspect (key competences). They participate in different training activities designed by the school and learn about good practices. Step 3: Back to their countries ambassador pupils and teachers will lead follow-up activities at each school. Each school will implement the best practices learnt in each meeting. As we accomplish each of the five objectives we will obtain a symbolic Olympic ring. All five rings will come together in the final meeting in Greece as we celebrate a Health Olympic day at an ancient site. The project is meant to have a lasting impact on the participating schools. The best practices and activities developed at each school will be shared via website (Twinspace) as well as through other dissemination and communication activities - seminars and workshops.
“Highway to Health” has been an Olympic journey through 5 countries to raise awareness of students in the field of health. Different key competences have been enhanced by sharing good practices and by learning from strengths of the 5 partnerschools. Our strategic partnership is formed by schools from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Slovakia and Spain. Each of our schools had an Olympic ring that was focused in one aspect related to health. The three priorities of the project are the improvement in the acquisition of competences (i.e. digital, cultural, social…), working on inclusion and the awareness of our European heritage through the topic of health. We have improved our skills setting objectives on five health aspects, our five Olympic rings: - The first ring (the yellow ring - Manlleu, Spain): healthy physical activities - using digital competences to enhance physical exercise - The second ring (the red ring - Snina, Slovakia): healthy environment - using cultural awareness competences - The third ring (the blue ring - Herzele, Belgium): sustainable mobility - using foreign language learning competences - The fourth ring (the black ring - Kassel, Germany): healthy food - using learning competences - The fifth ring (the green ring - Kalamata, Greece): mental health and well-being - using social and civic competences The Spanish, German and Belgian schools had already worked together in different projects and had learnt from each other to improve teaching and learning methods. After an analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, we identified the need to continue our collaboration focusing on health and well-being. We agreed that we need to/could improve some health aspects related to our students’/teachers’ routines. The partnership was enriched with a school from Slovakia and a Greek school dealing with special needs students. Having their own fields of expertise these schools gave a new dimension to our partnership. Integrating diversity students has been an essential aspect of the project. The health topic is highly relevant and easily accessible for all diversity of students. We also focused on social inclusion in each of the meetings (integrating all students in the different activities). During the project we also highlighted our European heritage. The Olympic journey on the Highway to Health started near the Olympic city Barcelona - our torch was lit in the Greek ruins of Empúries - During its journey to our countries our Highway included stops in places and aspects that are related to our shared culture and values – especially in the fields of sports, environment, mobility, food and well-being. The torch, representing all these common values traveled with us along the project Our final stop was in Greece, the cradle of the Olympics and the European civilisation - our Olympic torch ended its symbolic journey in the ruins of ancient Messini. In order to achieve the set aims we established a defined pattern for each aspect that we wished to improve: Step 1: Preparatory work at each school on the aspect dealt with in each meeting, shared online. Step 2: Teachers and students (Olympic Health ambassadors) attended a learning event at the host school. They focused on the particular strength of the host school on the field of health and on a learning aspect (key competences). They participated in different training activities designed by the school and learned about good practices. Step 3: Back to their countries ambassador pupils and teachers led follow-up activities at each school. Each school implemented the best practices learnt in each meeting. As we accomplished each of the five objectives we obtained a symbolic Olympic ring. All five rings came together in the final meeting in Greece as we celebrated a Health Olympic day at an ancient site - even if the pandemic limited the number of participants dramatically. The project is meant to have a lasting impact on the participating schools. After this successful collaboration we have started working together on a new project focused on environment and climate change. The best practices and activities developed at each school have been shared online (Twinspace) as well as through other dissemination and communication activities - seminars and workshops. We have also shared a step by step guide to our work in five files - corresponding to our five rings - with sustainable activities that can be easily implemented in other schools.