The project aimed to improve the language skills of teachers and pupils, to support their multilingualism and to break down the language barrier. Another goal was to learn about the multicultural environment - focusing on tolerance, breaking down prejudices against foreigners and differences, eliminating xenophobic and racist attitudes. We wanted to bring the children closer to the experience of the role of a migrant, to experience what people feel when they leave their native countries for various reasons and have to integrate in a new country. We wanted to establish contacts for further cooperation, give the pupils the opportunity to make new friends and experience the exchange stay. The topic of inclusion, immigration and diversity is very topical in Europe and every school may encounter this issue in the future - we wanted to develop social and civic competences - positive attitudes towards European integrity and critical thinking. We also aimed to contribute to the improvement of teachers' didactic competences during a professional course and shadowing. We wanted to learn how to actively use modern IT communication tools to implement projects at international level and disseminate them on international platforms.
We are a school with extended English and German language teaching. International projects are a priority for our school, opening new opportunities for pupils and staff. As the authors of this project - Mgr. Zajíčková (GL) and Mgr. Těhníková (EL), we work closely together and aim to combine these languages in the project. The main themes of the project are diversity, migration and inclusion in school education, and related multiculturalism and multilingualism. Our partner school in Leipzig is a catchment school for refugees and deals with these topics on a daily basis. Several nationalities (up to 2/3 migrants) can be found in one classroom, and pupils and their families often face socio-economic problems. Our school does not have such experiences, the classrooms are homogeneous without multicultural influences, so we found the cooperation suitable to gain new perspectives and to convey this experience to our pupils, who usually have a good family background and the situation of a refugee is unimaginable for them. Mutual exchange can be very enriching, our pupils experience how refugees feel in a foreign country and refugee children get to know other children who have to communicate in a language other than their mother tongue.