The TRAVEL project (Travail du Réseau d’Ambition à Vocation Européenne et Linguistic) is coordinated by Marcel Pagnol Elementary School, an REP+ (low-income, socially disadvantaged, and therefore high priority) school in Grace de Dieu, a largely underprivileged neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Caen. This project brings together 3 REP+ primary schools and 2 other primary schools (Jean Goueslard and École de Louvigny). The issues within REP+ schools are diverse: - social: unemployment, precarious employment/housing, asylum seekers - economic: 30% of families live below the poverty line - academic: results in national assessments and national diploma achievement are well below the Academy’s average - cultural: students hail from more than 12 different countries - health/disability: localised units for inclusive education have been set up in some schools in the network These difficulties affect the attractiveness of REP+ schools. Some parents are disengaged and many students lack motivation, which affects their academic performance, self-esteem, and the drop-out rate. These difficulties intensify with the entry of students into 6th grade. The switch to elementary and middle school is a key moment in the success of students’ education. Teachers, for their part, must adapt to the diversity of their audience, individualise their teaching, and innovate to stimulate the interest of their students. Over the last two years, as part of the 2015-2020 network project and the national reforms aimed at REP+ priority education, we have created a new dynamic that is based on collaborative work between teachers and project-based learning. Today, our educational teams want to go further and open the program to the rest of the world. The TRAVEL project was therefore designed to consider new pedagogical methods in underprivileged schools. The idea of creating an ideal school was quickly proposed because of the current restructuring of the Grace de Dieu neighborhood. Working themes were then defined in relation to the expertise of the institutions and the idea of the project. These themes are: sports and health, well-being, sustainable development, culture and digital technology. This pedagogical framework echoed with European teachers, many of whom are experienced in the implementation of Erasmus + projects. Each school in the network will therefore collaborate with a European school and a 6th grade class of Pagnol Elementary School in the implementation of educational activities related to the chosen theme. European teachers have agreed on a calendar of activities, a number of participants, the modalities of meetings, and a three-year plan so that students who begin the project in upcoming years can build on the work of past classes. This project is for elementary school students (ages 9-11), about 350 students per year (1000+ over three years), and their teachers. These students will work in groups of at least one French classes per European partner, or 250 students minimum per year. The project will have a greater impact on the schools involved as time goes on, as students rising into higher grade levels will be invited to discover the work that will already have been completed by their schoolmates. During the second year of the project, around 250 French students and teachers will participate in mobilities to the partner countries. In the third year, nearly 150 European students and teachers will come to France to participate in workshops at Pagnol Elementary School as part of a European Week. This project will be sponsored by the National Education Inspector, the REP + Coordinator and the DAREIC (Academic Delegation for European and International Relations and Cooperation) to ensure its success. TRAVEL will help to organise events by associating multiple actors from throughout the area. For students, it will help them to discover and promote European cultural diversity, make mobility accessible to disadvantaged students, facilitate the transition between primary school and elementary school, acquire the common core skills (written/oral expression, sciences, languages, etc.), and develop technology skills. For teachers, it will strengthen links between primary and secondary school teachers and their European partners, introduce an international dimension into educational activities and increase teachers’ language skills and project monitoring skills. TRAVEL will impact the territory and its results will be evaluated and disseminated at school, societal, environmental and cultural levels.
Initiated in 2018 by the Marcel Pagnol college, the TRAVEL project (Work of the European and Linguistic Vocation Ambition Network) was finally carried by the college newly named Stephen Hawking, head of the reinforced priority education network (REP +). This Erasmus + project has thus integrated and fully participated in the proactive dynamic (movement) of transformation of the college by strengthening links with the primary schools of the network. Let us remember that the college is located in the heart of the sensitive district of the Grace of God on the immediate outskirts of the city of Caen. It brings together 5 primary schools, three of which belong to the priority education network mainly welcoming a school population from disadvantaged social categories with problems: - social: unemployment, job / housing insecurity, asylum seekers - economic: 30% of families live below the poverty line - school: results in national assessments and the national diploma well below academic results - cultural: schooling of students from more than 12 different nationalities - health / disability: localized units for inclusive education set up in schools and now in college (at the start of the 2020 school year) The attachment of the schools of Fleury-sur-Orne (Jean Goueslard) and Louvigny (Hubert Reeves) specifically aims to bring social diversity. In this dynamic of restructuring and enhancement of the establishment (which suffered from a "degraded" image as evidenced by the strategies for bypassing the school map), the teams imagined new teaching practices and, in this perspective , seized on Erasmus + projects as a real chance given to students to engage them internationally and aim, thanks to new learning methods, to improve their results. Taking into account the school population involved in this project, the general objectives were not only aimed at social inclusion but were attached to fight against the problems encountered by disadvantaged pupils: lack of commitment (pupils and families), limited access to structures. cultural, sporting, international mobility and digital. The TRAVEL project, whose unifying ambition was to create the "Ideal School", was thus structured around 4 themes: sport and health, good living together, sustainable development and culture and digital technology. Each theme was led by a pair: a partner school associated with a group of French students from one of the elementary schools and college. The health crisis that led to the closure of establishments in March 2020 seriously impacted the implementation of the TRAVEL project and forced all partners to review the project implementation modalities: - Apart from the transnational mobility of French teachers, none of the student mobility has been achieved; - One of the partner schools was withdrawn from the project for lack of collaboration In this difficult context, each group endeavored to keep the spirit of the project and worked to carry out activities related to its theme in a multi-year program : > Sport and health Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 sport and nutrition The rhythms of schoolchildren and college students Prevention > sustainable development Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Eco-citizen diagnosis Become an eco-citizen My eco-responsible school > culture and digital Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Uses and customs Rewriting a traditional tale Illustration of the tale in modern and digital version > living well together Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Mediation Improvisation Diffusion