JOINT ACTIVITY REPORT 2004-2005
CA1-04-84
COMENIUS ACTION 1
European education projects
Project title: To study the transition process from school to work or college
Start date: 1.8.2004 Duration: 1 year
Coordinating school: Masarykovo gymnázium, Příbor, Jičínská 528
1) Activities carried out by the partnership in the past school year
A lot of the project activities were similar in all the participating schools. Each school prepared a brief profile of itself --- its aims and objectives for its pupils --- and a profile of a school graduate to share with other partner schools.
The partner schools outlined their current practises for assisting students in making the transition from school to work or college. Each partner made an internal evaluation of its own procedures and will modify them as it see fits. This was done on an individual basis and varied from school to school.
We appreciated with the particular mix of schools involved in the project it wouldn’t be a simple case of comparing like for like. There were significant differences between us, as the Spanish school is essentially a vocational one, while ours in the Czech Republic is essentially a grammar school. This was ,however, seen as an advantage rather than a problem by allowing to consider the diversity of education systems within the EU.
During the first project meeting in October we tabled a questionnaire that had already been prepared in our school. The questionnaire concentrated on these areas: how the transition from primary schools to secondary school works, how students fit in with their new classmates in new surroundings, who has most influenced the student’s choice to attend grammar school, and how the school and its careers advisor(s) help students to choose a certain university. Once we had translated it we sent copies to all our partner schools.
It was agreed that the questionnaire should also seek to establish the usefulness – as students see it - of any extra-curricular activities that may have been available and/or undertaken by students in the course of their school careers.
In each school the questionnaire about the transition process was given to 80 students, who were due to leave school the following year, in May 2005.
All the assistance given and the procedures in place within each school to help students to make the successful transition from school to university was then typed up and made into a book and CD.
Information about all the Comenius projects was also recorded and the results were exhibited during our Open Day. A presentation relating to all Masaryk Grammar School’s international projects was also prepared.
School exchanges and related activities during the first year:
- Meeting in the Czech Republic to discuss and plan the project activities
(October 2004) – teachers only
- Head Teacher study visit - the Finnish headmaster visited the Czech Republic
(October 2004)
- 2nd project meeting in Spain ( April 2005) –teachers from all partner schools were
present (as well as some Czech and all participating Spanish students)
- Head Teacher study visit - the Czech headmaster visited Spain (April 2005)
- Nine Finnish students and two teachers paid a visit to the Czech Republic in June
2005
- Teacher exchange - teacher from UK went to work in Finland and teacher from
Finland visited the partner school in Italy
Co-operation between the partner schools
Over the course of the year there were no major problems and everything ran smoothly. It was very good that the British school took part in the project work even though their original application for funding had been turned down and they had to find the money to allow their teacher to attend 1 meeting from their own budget.
What went less well than we expected
From our point of view the students were not involved in project meetings as much as we would have liked. All the partner schools were invited to bring their pupils with them to the Czech Republic, but, in the end, only teachers attended. When the second project meeting was organized in Bilbao only the Spanish pupils and 2 Czech students could make it.
2) Teaching materials and records that have been produced in the course of the past school year
- A detailed file on the project (in both English and Czech)
- Photo album recording the highlights of the project was kept
- All correspondence between partner schools was kept and filed away (copies in English and Czech)
- a video and photo album (on CD) of the project meetings in the Czech Republic and
in Spain was created using the school’s computer facilities
- a presentation about the Comenius project was prepared in each school
- a Powerpoint presentation about all international student projects and exchange programs was prepared and shown during our Open Day
- A book about the transition process from school to work or university was also produced
Most of the materials mentioned above were produced by the co-ordinating school. Some of the output was also prepared by each partner school separately - videos, photo albums, reports about school profile.
The partner schools shared information by making extensive use of e-mail and posting project work on their school websites. Other, bulkier, material was usually exchanged directly whenever we met face to face. All the output generated by the school was also disseminated and made available to the general public by contacting the local media (newspapers & TV) to make sure as many people as possible had a chance to see the work the school was engaged in.
3) How effective was the collaboration between the participating institutions?
Tasks were assigned and agreed at the two project meetings, while some more urgent tasks were discussed either by telephone or e-mail. E-mail was the most frequent and most useful means of communication between the teachers and students as well. English was used as the main communication language between teachers and pupils. There were some obstacles that hindered effective co-operation. Chief amongst these were the diverse educational systems in operation within the participating schools, the age of the pupils involved, the socio-economic make-up of the schools and the different approaches taken with the pupils in connection with project work. To overcome these, however, we tried to look for the similarities between us and focus on what we had in common.
Exchange programs involving the pupils helped them start new friendships or improve existing ones, and as a consequence we found that motivation amongst our pupils to learn a foreign language (particularly English) increased tremendously. The fact that 2 of our Czech pupils lodged with Spanish families, and the Finnish students visiting Moravia were put up by Czech families, encouraged a less formal relationship between those pupils involved allowing them more time together to practise their language skills.
Staff exchange programs helped a lot in understanding the differences in our educational systems in much greater detail. As with the student exchange programs, the fact that foreign teachers were able to observe at first hand (and sometimes teach) in a different education system allowed us all as educational facilitators a much deeper insight and helped foster closer co-operation between teachers, students and schools.
4) Joint evaluation of the project activities and progress made.
The schools involved are keen to continue this program of co-operation , not only within the framework of the Commenius project, but also by using the friendly contacts that have been forged between the schools to organize further student exchanges and optional work experience abroad etc.
Příbor, July 25, 2005
|