Participating schools

Kaunas John Paul II Gymnasium is a non-state educational institution founded by the archbishop of Kaunas. It consists of 2 departments: the primary school (grades 1 to 4) and the secondary school (classes 5 to 12) currently educating 1,417 students. There are 113 teachers working at school. For more than a decade, we have been one of the largest schools its terms of student numbers in the whole country. Although the title defines us as a religious institution we are an open-minded school giving priority to teaching tolerance, compromise and understanding. The Gymnasium is located in Kaunas, the second largest city of the Republic of Lithuania. The school is relatively new, it was only founded more than 20 years ago thus being the third youngest school in the city. Prior to 2013, it had been bearing the title Kaunas “Azuolo” (which is “oak” in English) Secondary School and focusing on ethno cultural education. The school is advanced not only in the scientific field of sciences, but also in social, artistic field, as well. We have got a folklore and hikers club which is very active and gives concerts and organises events monthly (http://www.gile.lt/). Our school has accumulated expertise in the promotion of Lithuanian folk art. During the two decades of its existence, the school folk band “Gile” has been given numerous prestigious awards including “Aukso paukšte” (en. The Bluebird‹1), an equivalent of the Oscar Award given to amateur artists in Lithuania. It is the only school folk art band/club to have been given such a prestigious award in the country. It is run by two nationally recognized experts of folk arts, Mr. Dobilas Juška and Mr. Artuiras Sinkevičius. The key people in charge running the Project will be the vice-principal and English teachers, appointed for the Project.
Also, there is the group formed to carry on the Project in the most effective way. Also the leader of the song and dance company is included in the working group. Our participation in the Project is based on three main principles: cognition, interaction and experience resulting in the increased cultural awareness, tolerance and mutual understanding. The following activities are expected to be performed in cooperation with Kaunas City House of Various Nations and their Cultures (Kauno jvairiu tautu kulturu centras; www.minority.lt). Even though Kaunas City is ethnically one of the most homogeneous cities in Lithuania (92.9% of Lithuanians as per census), we want to know more different cultures. The House coordinates the cultural activity such as exhibitions, musical performances, etc. and provides opportunities to get acquainted and to participate in the ongoing cultural events.

Agrupamento de Escolas D. Sancho is a non-profit public aggregation of schools located in a mixed urban-rural area in the north of Portugal (V. N. Famalicão). The schools provide all levels of education from elementary / Kindergarten to Secondary with regular and vocational courses and night-school for adults. -Recognition and validation of key-competences (night school) It enrolls about 2200 students and employs 250 teachers and 40 school assistants. The school provides several extracurricular activities, with several clubs as well as the school magazine and school sports. The school can contribute to the project with its experience and expertise. DEVELOPING TOLERANCE AND MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING IN EUROPE is an interesting theme because it deals with multiculturalism and the increasing of multicultural societies, in which tolerance and mutual understanding are fundamental values that should be transmitted to students. In that sense, this project couldn’t be more relevant and pertinent to raise students’ awareness to these important issues and to make them more conscious and respectful citizens in a Europe that assumes itself as a multicultural union, in which diversity is an asset. Moreover, students should be encouraged to fight discrimination and prejudice, feeling that we are all equal, regardless of race, skin colour, religion or nationality. Due to the current migrations, the refugees issue and all the movements and all the controversial policies in the world, this project couldn’t make more sense. A. E. D. Sancho I / Escola Secundária D. Sancho I has participated in European projects regularly (Comenius, Grundtvig, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus+), thus broadening the students’ horizons and enrichening trainers with a wide range of different perspectives. The schools staff is mostly stable, flexible and very experienced, with teachers easily moving from regular courses to more target-oriented ones. A.E. D.
Sancho I is regularly assessed, both internally (by an independent team of teachers, school assistants, students, parents) and externally (by state educational supervisors). It has always tried to develop what is necessary for the success of students on the whole. Particular attention has been given to their social and working skills. The teams involved in projects have a great experience in this kind of projects because we have been working with several European projects for many years and our students, from teenagers to adults, have also been participating . All the projects have been successful due to the hard work and expertise of the team elements. The key people in charge of running the project will be Ana Maria Azevedo (English teacher) and Ana Isabel Santos (Art Teacher). If the project is approved, a competent, multidisciplinary team will be formed and the participation of our school in the project will never be at risk.

Our village Batanii Mari lays in the Baraolt Basin, which is surrounded by hills and lower mountains. We have a population 4500 inhabitants. The centre village is Batanii Mari. The main occupation of the population in Batanii Mari is the agriculture, mainly they keep animals as sheep, cows to obtain milk. Some of the people are working at smaler companies (firms) but there so many who don”t have a place where to work. Our school has five educational structures in three villages: Batanii Mari, Batanii Mici and Aita Seaca. The educational stuctures are:a kindergarden in Batanii Mari, a kindergarden in Batanii Mici, an elementary school in Batanii Mici, a kindergarden in Aita Seaca and a primary school in Aita Seaca. We have five groups of children in our kindergardens (two of them are mixed groups) with five kindergarden teachers, nine groups of pupils in elementary classes (four of them are mixed classes) with nine teachers and seven primary classes (two of them are mixed classes) with twelve teachers. As the headmaster of the Konsza Samu School I will coordinate the project in which is taken part our school . I like the mountains and when I have possibilities I take children with me to walk in the forests or to climb mountains. Sometimes we go even with our bycicles to visit other villages, churches important historical buildings or simply just for fun and to be in the nature. Other collegues who will be in charge of implementation of the project in the school will be Balo Judit-Lili, Farkas Eva, Keresztes Eniko, Veres Ildiko and Novac Maria Magdolna teachers. Every year we take part in smaller projects for examplein our county it is a project to visit the county. It is about a one day schooltrip through the county and the pupils can see the other part, other villages and towns of their county. Some of them have the only chance to visit those villages because their parents have no money to take them there or to organise them a trip. For more than four years we had a cooperation project with a school from Alba county. We visited each other with sutdents to, we organised common activities and made common trips to the nearby attractions. For us very interesting was to see the Turda salt mine, and the Turda mountainous region. The pupils and the teachers too were accomodated by families from the students and by the teachers too. It was an interesting experience. In a new project by Erasmus we are curious to experience other countries educational system, how the teachers teach, how do the students learn, how do they resolve their problems, how do they use in the education the informatics.

We have 1116 students and68 teachers (included the headmaster and the assistant directors) it is a national, public secondary school. Our school (Tezer Taşkıran Secondary School) is in İstanbul (Asia Side). As you know İstanbul is a metropolitan and cosmopolitan city. Day by day İstanbul allow new immigrants from other cities of Turkey and from foreign countries. Our students are teenagers (they are between ten an thirteen). As most of teenagers they cope with puberty problems however they want to go on their education. We teach: 1. Turkish 2. Mathematics 3. Science and Technology 4. Art 5. Physical education (P.E.) 6. English (as a forein language) 7. Music 8. Social Sciences 9. Ethics and Religion Also we teach some other subjetcs as elective subjects. Moreover our school is determined to improve students’ abilities in sports and artistic activities so there are sports course (archery, basketball, soccer, volleyball, athletics and table tennis) and artistic courses (art, drama and piano). Also there is chess course, too. Two teachers are in charge of chess. Tezer Taşkıran Secondary School is in semi-urban and industrial area of İstanbul. Because of being industrial area there is huge population circulation. People move here to find a job, live for a time and then move to another part of İstanbul. This situation causes difficulty in creating a culture, empathy, developing tolerance and mutual understanding among the people neighborhood. People here (they are students and their parents) have a low socioeconomic level. This is one of the causes of having not mutual understanding. Other rasons are increasing of using technology (especially social media) and bad economic conditions. As you know social media make people more alone than past. We think meeting foreign cultures will help us and our students in learning how to cope with the problems, between the students and immigrants. We aim to have a new approach in mutual understanding by experience in foreign countries. By this project our students will meet foreign students so they will observe their way of life they will breaktheir prejudice and respect cultural differences between nations. The key people in charge of runnig the project in our school will be Fatih AKDOĞAN, Cahide YENİ, Fevzi Furkan IŞIK, Ayşe ATÇI and Bedir İNAN. 1) Fatih AKDOĞAN is responsible of the project (project manager) (heis experienced in national and international projects.) 2) Cahide YENİ is responsible of translating, writing and comminication between projetc partners. 3) Ersin BIDIRDI (our informatics and technology teacher) will be in charge of informatics and cinema. 4) Ahmet TEPE will be responsible of financial conditions and financial reports. 5) Şaban TAŞTAN will be responsible of cultural activities, and mind games. In absence of our key teachers: 6) Ayşe ATÇI CÜNÜNOĞLU isin charge of finance of the projetc (she will keep the reports of financial conditions of the project) and film.

Kuressaare Hariduse School is a state-funded basic school located on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. It consists of three departments: primary school (students aged 7-10), basic school (students aged 11-16) and students with special educational needs (aged 7-16). There are 604 students and 79 teachers in the institution.

The school offers academic education of high standard focusing on sciences and promoting environmentally-friendly way of life. To do that, several projects are carried out; learners go on field trips and have workshops in nature. Besides that there is a science theatre in the school which gives performances in order to explain some chemical reactions.

Besides that, students are given a chance to participate in extracurricular activities: sing in the school choir, act in a drama club, do sports and practise traditional dances in the school folk dance group.

Participating in various projects is highly valued by all the parties of the school. In addition to being involved in and being the beneficiary of Erasmus+ projects, we have cooperated with other schools via eTwinning. Projects as such broaden students' minds, teach them different cultures, facilitate mutual understanding and enhance their knowledge of English. As a result, self-esteem and skills of communication are improved.