A year ago, almost to the day, I was lucky enough to make contact with a like-minded teacher at 'le Collège Calmette et Guérin d’Écueillé" who was searching for a UK partner. Neither of us could have predicted the position we would now be in and the amazing times that are ahead of us.
We immediately linked our Year 9 and 10 pupils who were thrilled to be making friends in another country. I was proud of how fully and enthusiastically they embraced this link; they had great fun sharing photos, letters, emails, questionnaires, gifts, birthday cards, Christmas cards... not to mention facebook, twitter and instagram accounts - I'm told! We used class time and homeworks to encourage regular contact to be established during the academic year and now they are left to their own devices. Technology these days makes keeping in touch so much easier and I sincerely hope that some of them will still be in touch with each other in 30 years, like I am with my French penfriend.
 |
Meanwhile, Sophie and I started thinking on a BIGGER scale and set about preparing a proposal for an Erasmus Plus project. Along with other colleagues, found via the Etwinning website, we spent hours and hours Skyping and emailing to fine-tune our proposal. We settled on the name "Home Sweet Home" which gave us a clear theme to which every strand of the project would link.
After 6 months of preparation, we submitted our very detailed and extremely lengthy proposal and then the long wait began...
5 months later (last Thursday) we were notified that - out of thousands and thousands of projects - our project had been selected for funding by the European Commission. We are so delighted, shocked, surprised and also a little daunted! Now the real work (and fun) begins.
Our project involves 5 schools: Heathfield School in the UK, Collège Calmette et Guérin d’Écueillé in France, Santo Domingo in Spain, Music School of Volos in Greece and Yusufca Sehit Irfan Yaman Orta Okulu in Turkey and its duration is 3 years. During this time, ambassadors from each school will have the chance to travel to each of the 4 other countries and every member of the school will experience 'virtual' collaboration with pupils from other countries on joint projects and ventures. Exciting times afoot!
Our key priorities include:
- multilingualism
- digital skills
- employability
and all partners will work towards:
- the Europass Language Passport and...
- Heathfield Employability for Life Charter.
The first stage of the project involves a planning meeting in November which will be held in France. After which I will be able to share much more information with you.
Our twitter account for the project is @erasmus_home
If anyone is going through the process of writing an Erasmus project and needs help or advice, please feel free to contact me @madame_ewhite
If anyone is going through the process of writing an Erasmus project and needs help or advice, please feel free to contact me @madame_ewhite
