This project involves five primary schools from five different counties: Italy, Spain, Finland, Ireland and UK. Four out of five of these schools had never previously experienced a European Exchange Program. Most of the schools are situated in rural areas with low exposure to other languages and cultures. Children with learning difficulties are numerous and in many cases the lack of funding leads to a limited support for children with additional needs. In this project we want to work on inclusion and integration through creativity. We are interested in learning about how education systems in other countries work with specific interest in inclusion and integration. We aim to promote the inclusion of all pupils regardless of their needs in all aspects of school life. We are very keen to see the practices of other schools to see how we can improve in the provision of education through a model of inclusion and integration and also to share our experiences and approaches to inclusion and integration to date. We aim to improve our models of inclusion so that all pupils, regardless of ability are learning among their peers whilst meeting their needs. The schools would also like to improve their use of ICT as a means of communication with other schools for the purpose of sharing teaching and learning practices. This project would allow our children to be exposed to other languages and cultures. Through this project we will -share creative ideas and techniques to apply in the classroom such as learning with lapbooks, learning through music and gamification. - enhance pupils motivation and collaboration through cooperative learning, problem solving, workshops, learning centers - work on diversity as a variety of habits, experiences and languages and highlight the benefits of diversity: -Christmas Exchange Market where the money raised will be given to charities and theme events where groups of pupils will create workshops about other countries. The Cultural week, where schools will be hosting events, exhibitions, art, drama and music. The topic will be diversity of cultures and each country should send a display for the exhibition showing some interesting facts of their own culture. -promote final activities such as performances which will include drama, songs and dance. The idea is to prepare together with the children a show, an advertisement and an ebook where the main topics will be social inclusion and human rights. It will be a joint work where each country will make a part of each of the three products. This project is going to have a significant impact on our school community because it will bring an international perspective to school discussions and challenge and encourage teachers to consider new methods of instruction that are more consistent with their previous learning experiences. From the pupils perspective this will mean a great opportunity form both a cultural and a personal point of view. Spending quality school time reflecting upon essential issues such as diversity and inclusion will make the difference in their educational path.
This project involved five primary schools from five different countries: Italy, Spain, Finland, Ireland and UK. Four out of five of these schools had never previously experienced a European Exchange Program. Most of the schools are situated in rural areas with low exposure to other languages and cultures. Children with learning difficulties are numerous and one of the schools has two special classes for children with autism.The special classes for autism have access to specialised facilities, such as a sensory room and a room for occupational therapy. In this project we have been working on inclusion and integration through creativity doing simple but effective activities through art, music and culture. We had the opportunity to understand how our different education systems work with specific interest in inclusion and integration. Visiting the schools enabled us to see their practices. This would help improve the provision of education through a model of inclusion and integration in our own schools. Sharing our experiences and approaches to inclusion and integration have been very beneficial. We updated our models of inclusion so that all pupils, regardless of ability are learning among their peers whilst meeting their needs. We had great opportunities to improve the use of ICT as a means of communication with other schools for the purpose of sharing teaching and learning practices. The schools collaborated on a musical performance through a live video call led by the school in Spain and also during mobilities the partners shared videos of activities and performances based on the agreed tasks. The Pandemic further challenged us to use technology more as we couldn't travel and this was a great chance for both teachers and pupils to find an alternative way of communicating and developing the digital skills of staff, pupils and their families as a platform for teaching and learning. This project allowed our children to be exposed to other languages and cultures through Erasmus corners displays, materials and presentations shared in our Etwinning Twinspace and events such as school visits. Through this project as teachers we shared creative ideas and techniques and applied them in the classroom: learning with lapbooks (science experience on living and non living things), learning through music (hip hop songwriting activity, body percussion activity) and gamification (participation to the European Code Week). This helped us to enhance pupils motivation and collaboration through cooperative learning, problem solving, workshops, the use of learning centers. We have been working on diversity as a variety of habits (activities based on the butterfly circus short movie), experiences (charities and schools for disadvantaged children) and languages and highlighted the benefits of diversity. Since the Christmas Exchange Market was not possible due to Pandemic, we decided to carry on activities about diversity based on different experiences. The ongoing pandemic gave Clocha Rince NS the opportunity to broaden the engagement with the project by creating a further link within the wider school community. With the assistance of some parents, the children produced artwork, wrote letters and cards and made 'care packages' for the residents of a local nursing home. This enabled the children to explore their creativity and to have a greater understanding of those with needs within their community. It was a beneficial and rewarding exercise and has given the school an opportunity to teach the children about valuing our older generation. The school from Italy produced a video, which you will find attached to this report, based on the experience of a teacher who volunteered in Ethiopia. This video had a deep impact on the school children as they could see how different the reality of Ethiopia was. The video was used for intercultural debate in all classes. Spain Finland Northern Ireland The cultural experiences shared helped everyone to understand and appreciate different habits, traditions, music and languages: -production of videos with an original song in all the different languages -each country wrote a verse of the Ode of Joy in their own language -videos about experiences of cultural diversities Because of the Pandemic restrictions we couldn't perform a real show, but we prepared material on different media on the main topics such as social inclusion and human rights. The Pandemic helped us to develop our competences in online interactions and the kids were able to see and share what they produced even through this difficult situation. This project had a significant impact on our school community because it brought an international perspective to school discussions and challenged and encouraged staff to consider new methods of instruction that are more consistent with their previous learning experiences. From the pupils perspective this has been a great opportunity from both a cultural and a personal point of view. Spending quality school time reflecting upon essential issues such as diversity and inclusion made the difference in their educational path.