Our project Respect, Re-use, Recycle is based on three small words that have the potential to make enormous differences in the way we all view and live our lives. Our schools are from different countries and different situations: small, large, rural, urban. All include mixture of pupils from different social, ethnic and migrant communities, and pupils with special educational needs. In total about 2250 primary aged children and 150 members of staff in our schools will be involved in the project, with the older children and some members of staff having opportunities to travel on exchange visit to each others schools. The project will also include collaboration with our wider whole school communities, local educational networks, organisations, and small businesses. The project includes partners who have a proven track record of working together on previous Comenius and Erasmus plus projects, and a new partner school with a wealth of experience and expertise in international projects (although they are new to Erasmus plus), IT and environmental work. We all recognise that we are living in turbulent and challenging times. Our young people are growing up in a world with many complex conflicts and environmental issues with very real problems with climate change and sustainability. We want to work on a project that allows our school communities to work together to investigate and study these issues. It is very much hoped that through this project we can all make changes, integrating new practices that impact positively on schools and local communities and make our world a better place for future generations. We want to empower our young people to be able to make positive change now and in the future as lifelong learners and citizens of Europe and the wider world. Funding enables pupils and staff to travel to partner countries and schools to work together on shared projects and experience first-hand life language culture and attitudes in places other than their own. This is particularly important for young people who would otherwise not have the opportunity to travel or to meet other people and fully understand the diversity of the multi-cultural, multi-faceted modern Europe in which we all exist. Funding provides equality of opportunity across all partners regardless of previous economic background. The project will provide our school communities with opportunites to undertake exciting and motivating cross curricular work and experiences, allowing for acquisition of new skills and very rich, in depth learning and understanding. This impacts highly on attainment and progress across subjects as well as improving self-esteem and self-confidence and the ability to work collaboratively with others. Our objectives are to achieve lifelong changes in attitudes concerning the three R's - respect, re-use, recycle. We will continue to have a focus on the development of basic maths and literacy skills through the project, as well as rich cross curricular teaching and learning. Throughout the project, partners, pupils and staff will share ideas and research, working collaboratively online and documenting their work using our project Twinspace. We will also investigate the latest ICT, and investigate the use of apps such as padlet.com, zoom meetings, nearpod, answergarden, lino, Kahoot.it / kahoot.com, tricider, duolingo, and Smoovie. We will use online resources such as British Council's Zero Waste. Our work will be showcased in i-books, Twinpsace, school websites and digital newsletters Our objectives are for all our school communities to have an enhanced understanding of respect. Respect in terms of themselves, others and the environment. We want to better prepare them for life.. Another objective is to develop critical thinking, problem solving members of our school communities. By providing experiences of problem solving in a real life context, e.g. what do we do will all our waste? how can we improve life on our planet for everyone? We will enable school communities to think about creative solutions to these issues. We will have a strong focus on the UN convention of human rights, e-safety, and sustainability. We want to engage in debates, use skype, create and use a project e-twining Twinspace with results accessible after the project ends. We want the project to produce long term concrete changes in terms of all school communities, fostering the development of active citizenship and an entrepreneurial spirit. This will include communities recycling as much as possible, including composting food waste and re using it in growing projects, clothes waste and tracking what happens to unwanted items, development of green teams and eco school teams, re- using resources and creating items to sell, creating links with charitable organisations. We aim to follow the lead of the Irish partner school and become Green Flag schools and together join an International Eco-Schools Twinning programme.
Our project Respect, Re-use, Recycle is based on three small words that make an enormous difference in the way we all view and live our lives. Our schools are from different countries and different situations: small, large, rural, urban. All include mixture of pupils from different social, ethnic and migrant communities, and pupils with special educational needs. In total about 2250 primary aged children and 150 members of staff in our schools have been involved in the project, with the older children and some members of staff having opportunities to travel on exchange visit to each others schools. The project also included collaboration with our wider whole school communities, local educational networks, organisations, and small businesses. The project included partners with a proven track record of working together on previous Comenius and Erasmus plus projects, and a new partner school with a wealth of experience and expertise in international projects (although they are new to Erasmus plus), IT and environmental work. We are living in turbulent and challenging times. Our young people are growing up in a world with many complex conflicts and environmental issues with very real problems with climate change and sustainability, and the unexpected event of a global pandemic. Our project allowed our school communities to work together to investigate and study these issues. Through this project we have all made changes, integrating new practices that have impacted positively on schools and local communities and helped to make our world a better place for future generations. We have empowered our young people to be able to make positive change now and in the future as lifelong learners and citizens of Europe and the wider world. Funding has enabled pupils and staff to travel to partner countries and schools to work together on shared projects and experience at first-hand life, language culture and attitudes in places other than their own. This is particularly important for young people who would otherwise not have the opportunity to travel or to meet other people and fully understand the diversity of the multi-cultural, multi-faceted modern Europe in which we all exist. Funding provides equality of opportunity across all partners regardless of previous economic background. The project has provided our school communities with opportunities to undertake exciting and motivating cross curricular work and experiences, allowing for acquisition of new skills and very rich, in depth learning and understanding. This has impacted on attainment and progress across subjects as well as improving self-esteem and self-confidence and the ability to work collaboratively with others. Whilst achieving lifelong changes in attitudes concerning the three R's - respect, re-use, recycle, we have continued to have a focus on the development of basic maths and literacy skills through the project, as well as rich cross curricular teaching and learning. Throughout the project, partners, pupils and staff have shared ideas and research, working collaboratively online and documenting their work using our project Twinspace. We have investigated the latest ICT, and investigated the use of apps such as padlet.com, zoom meetings, nearpod, answergarden, lino, Kahoot.it / kahoot.com, tricider, duolingo, and Smoovie. We have used online resources such as British Council's Zero Waste. Our work has been showcased in i-books, Twinpsace, school websites and digital newsletters Our school communities have developed an enhanced understanding of respect. Respect in terms of themselves, others and the environment. They are better prepared for life. Participants have developed critical thinking, and problem solving skills. By providing experiences of problem solving in a real life context, e.g. what do we do will all our waste? how can we improve life on our planet for everyone? We have enabled our school communities to think about creative solutions to these issues. We have focused on the UN convention of human rights, e-safety, and sustainability. We have engaged in debates, used Google Meet, created and used a project e-twining Twinspace with results that will remain accessible after the project ends. The project has produced long term concrete changes in terms of all school communities, fostering the development of active citizenship and an entrepreneurial spirit. Communities are now recycling as much as possible, including composting food waste and re using it in growing projects, clothes waste and tracking what happens to unwanted items, developing of green teams and eco school teams, re- using resources and creating items to sell, creating links with charitable organisations. Due to COVID 19 pandemic all our schools had periods of closure or partial opening. School communities had to adapt teaching and learning in the classroom and remotely. We had to complete our final two project mobilities 'virtually'