Our “collège Mathurin Régnier”, situated in Chartres, is a secondary school welcoming sports school sections hosting several sports such as handball, football and swimming. Our school has had different sports sections for over a decade and we were able to quantify positively that our students, on the whole, succeed better thanks to these sections even if they are not part of these sections. Our sports sections are part of an agreement with the PE regional branch of the Academy of Orle-ans-Tours. Our sports sections concern 102 students from Year 7 to Year 10, or one student out of 6 attending our school. The sports sections give an identity and a specificity to our “Collège Mathurin Ré-gnier” which is recognized for its teaching skills of welcoming and monitoring stu-dents from these sections. They are positive for our school because they enhance its image, enrich the training opportunities at a regional level and promote a real geographic, social and cultural diversity. As six of our colleagues have discovered different school systems through Europe for two years thanks to an Erasmus + key one project, we got motivated to build up partnerships with European schools and offer new, original and innovative opportunities to our students. Indeed, our school used to have exchanges with British and German schools but we never took part in an Erasmus project. We created a steering group with 5 colleagues (out of the six who participated in the Erasmus + key one project) in December 2018 in order to coordinate partnerships with schools. The colleagues involved in this steering group teach different subjects (Art, Music, History, geography and English). This shows the diversity of our group; which is very enriching when creating this project. Each colleague can actually participate according to their skills. We want to use this new project to increase the dynamic and openness to others and to the difference among our students. We also aim at strengthening moti-vation and developing the academic ambition of our students; which is often poor because of their social backgrounds. Indeed, more than half of our students come from the poorest social classes. Through the Erasmus + project, we want to pursue our desire for diversity and openness to Europe through the knowledge of others, i.e. their education, their culture, their traditions but also their sports and cultural practices. The common use of English will allow positive exchanges with our Estonian and Italian partners. We want all our Year 10 students, in 2020-2021, then all our Year 11 students in 2021-2022 to participate in the project. Around 40 students will be offered a physical mobility abroad (20 to each destination) and receive about the same number of students from our two partner schools. We want to highlight the necessary use of English as a common language through Europe; that is why we deliberately chose to make the use of this language as one of our priorities. We find it important to receive students from Estonia and Italy at the same time in order to highlight the ideas of sharing, tolerance, openness to others and mutual understanding that are at the core of this project. Many visits will be organized in connection with our project, in France and abroad. We have particularly targeted artistic, cultural and sporting places. Our students will become cultural junior facilitators and ambassadors to report on their experiences. Thanks to eTwinning, we are starting to create a link between our different schools. We will intensify our use of this platform in order to strengthen our partnership and prepare for physical mobility. As our problem shows it ("Becoming a junior facilitator: discovering our and others’ cultural heritage and sports facilities"), our priority is to give power to our students by opening up to each other in a common language, making discover their cultural heritage and sports facilities but also by enriching themselves when meeting each other virtually or physically. Thanks to the eTwinning platform we are weaving a strong bond between students, between teachers. These exchanges will continue with a physical exchange between our establishments during which the students will be real actors of their mobility, by producing reports and small videos or presentations. We want our students to be involved in this project of European openness in order to allow them to develop social skills by meeting the other, finding motivation and making progress in their school career. Not forgetting that France will host the Olympic Games in 2024, and in the perspective of "Paris 2024" 'we thus wish to develop in our pupils the feeling of a true European belonging and help them build their European citizenship in parallel with their national citizenship. If this first project is accepted, we are willing to continue our European adventure: perpetuating partnerships with schools abroad in the future is a priority for our school.
The Mathurin Régnier College is a secondary school that has school sports sections for several disciplines such as handball, soccer and swimming (men's and women's). This has been going on for about 15 years now, and the school sports sections are under agreement with the Regional Educational Inspectorate of the Orleans-Tours Academy. The 4 sports sections have a total of 102 students from 6° to 3°, i.e. one student out of 6. The sports sections give an identity and a specificity to the Mathurin Régnier school, recognized for its skills in terms of welcoming and monitoring sports students throughout the Orleans-Tours academy. These sections are positive for the school because they enhance its image, enrich the training offer in the region and promote a real geographical, social and cultural mix. Today, some of them are even sports sections of excellence. Through the Erasmus+ project, we have created an idea of diversity and openness to Europe through the knowledge of others, through their education, their culture, their traditions and also their sports and cultural practices. The common use of English allowed fruitful exchanges with our Estonian and Italian partners. Our project suffered from the health situation and we had to reorganize the planning of the project in agreement with our partner schools who were facing the same challenges. After a long phase of virtual mobility(s) under different conditions, we could carry out the mobilities planned in our project while respecting the health requirements of each partner country and the objectives we had chosen at the beginning of the project deployment. Some activities have been adapted because of the health situation but it was mainly the target groups that we had to change. Indeed, we privileged the students who took the LCE option (European languages and cultures) to participate in the physical mobilities. We still targeted students with fewer opportunities, but we could not reach our goals, as their families refused the vaccination. The number of physical mobilities was overall respected. Numerous visits were organized in connection with our project, in France and abroad with the Estonian and Italian students. We particularly targeted artistic, cultural and sports venues. In cooperation with our partners, we focused on the discovery of everyday life during the virtual and physical mobilities: our students became actors as junior ambassadors to report on their experiences and made other young people discover their real life. Partly thanks to the eTwinning platform, used since the 2019-2020 school year with our Italian and Estonian partners, we have forged a link between pupils, between teachers, through digital exchanges, virtual visits to our cities, our establishments and the establishment of a dialogue rich in discoveries and anecdotes. In partnership with our partners, we also chose to communicate differently: by regular mailings. The students produced reports in the form of magazines or articles and small video documentaries in order to reflect on their position as mediators and to successfully welcome people during their mobilities; this was a real success. The students were strongly involved in this project of European openness and they developed social skills by reaching out to others, motivation, the search for progress in their school career, but also planning skills and autonomy through the organization of this project. We developed in our students the feeling of being a real European citizen belonging and helped them to build their European citizenship in parallel to their national citizenship. This project was also very enriching for the teachers who were able to discover different teaching methods, different teaching postures and diverse educational models. We were delighted with this first experience and have continued our European adventure by proposing a second Key 2 application for 2023-2025 and by finding a new partner school thanks to our Italian partner.