The project participants

LICEO ETTORE MAJORANA, DESIO, ITALY liceomajoranadesio.it

Our Institution has about 1,100 students across three courses, Liceo Scientifico, Liceo delle Scienze applicate and Liceo classico. Students come from some towns of Monza e Brianza province, an administrative province of Lombardy region, characterized by highly developed areas, north of Milan, with small and medium sized enterprises and businesses operating in a European context and by more rural and green areas, south of Lecco and Como.

Our school promotes students improvement in general knowledge, literary and scientific, enabling them to pursue further studies at the University. Also our Institution increase its educational offer by extracurricular courses ( sport, music, drama, writing or editing, courses pursuing excellence, cultural conferences for students and citizens,..). According a recent survey about the standard of students in Italy, our school is a centre of excellence.

TALLINNA KESKLINNA VENE GÜNMAASIUM, TALLINN, ESTONIA www.tkvg.ee

Tallinn Central Russian Secondary School is one of the oldest schools in Estonia, which was established in 1923. The school offers 12 grades of secondary education for 1215 students under the guidance of more than 102 member teaching staff. The school is a community of students from different ethnic backgrounds.

The institution is in constant process of improving its learning environment, resources, as well as teaching and learning methods up to the highest educational standards. Its main focus is teaching foreign languages:English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, as well as developing students’ creativity.

The curricula delivery relies on variety of activities, which contains outdoor learning and e-learning. The latter was greatly improved by school’s own IT specialists, who developed and implemented the virtual learning environment based on Google Apps.

The teaching staff and students have experience in participation in different European projects and are always delighted to have other opportunities.

GTO GUZEL SANATLAR LISESI, GAZIANTEP, TURKEY

Gaziantep Anatolian High School and Gaziantep Science High School are public schools focusing on English language education and on natural sciences and mathematics. The art high school was founded in 2005. The structure of it is composed by 35 teachers and 230 students. It is also provided a dormitory inside the school. Students are between 15-18 years old. The size of the school let students have the chance of having music and art lesson with their teachers one to one.

The institution is in Gaziantep which is the sixth biggest city of Turkey. It’s placed on Silk Road with its many history features.

In order to internationalize the school the staff is eager to join projects with other European schools. Meeting new people and new cultures is a goal of the school staff in order to can offer students always better possibilities. In this vision, the school has already been involved into two Comenius and this has let the setting of a project management team that through the years has gained a good know-how in it.

Our students are not only always dealt with music and art, also learn Maths, Physics, Literature, History, Chemistry, Physical Education and Turkish and English lessons.

Our school has participated in many regional and national events in the fields of art and music and has succeeded in since the day we opened.

We hope our success will improve day by day.

COLEGIUL TEHNIC DE TRANSPORTURI AUTO, DROBETA TURNU SEVERIN, ROMANIA http://cttadts.wix.com/cttauto

Colegiul Tehnic de Transporturi Auto is a public institution, located in a semi-peripheral area of Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Mehedinti County, in the southwestern part of Romania. The institution was founded in 1922, when it worked as a "School of Apprentices" and it is known today as a technical educational institution with a valuable tradition in preparing young people in different proffesions and specializations ready to meet the challenges of European society of knowledge and with real opportunities in the labor market competition. Throughout its existence covering almost a century, our school has coped to numerous changes experienced by the Romanian educational system in all this period through a permanent capacity to adapt to the new requirements.

At present, the number of students in our school is about 900, enrolled in vocational education or secondary and post- secondary highschool education. We offer a wide different courses in specializations or qualifications in the following domains: mechanic, electric, transport, energetic or computer science. Beeing a technical educational institution we provide a curriculum based mainly on sciences and technical subjects.

Most of the students, aged between 14 and 19 years are coming from disadvantaged backgrounds in socio-economic terms, from the nearby small rural villages with low standard of living or with migrant parents and some of them belongs to the ethnic minorities, such as Roma. Moreover, they have grown in families with a poor educational and cultural level and their expectation about school are not high.

For some of them we are making special efforts, not to drop out of school.

We have students with special educational needs who are integrated in regular classes.

For students’ counseling activity, the school is equipped with a psycho-pedagogical assistance office where operates, full time, a school counselor.

AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS PóVOA DE LANHOSO, PóVOA DE LANHOSO, PORTUGAL www.espl.edu.pt

Agrupamento de Escolas de Póvoa de Lanhoso is an organization integrated in a rural area, in the north of Portugal. It's a public school with 1369 students from all levels ( kindergarten-112; primary/ basic- 778; and secondary - 590), 133 teachers and 69 from staff.

Secondary level offers : Sciences and Technologies and Languages and Humanities courses; Vocational courses (Multimedia; Electronics; Environmental and Rural Tourism; Audiovisual; Health).We also have students with special needs, who are integrated in regular classes.

Our institution faces some specific difficulties because is integrated in a rural area with a low social and cultural background; most students and some families have no expectations about their future, particularly the students in vocational courses; some of the pupils’ families are emigrants, and they live alone without family emotional support, phenomenon that has intensified in the recent years

2nd GENERAL LYCEUM OF OREOKASTRO, OREOKASTRO, Greece http://2lyk-oraiok.thess.sch.gr

2nd General Lyceum of Oreokastro is a public secondary school with 300 students aged 15-18 year old and around 30 teachers. Some of the teachers work exclusively in this school and some others (Arts or German teachers) work in nearby schools.

The school is situated in the town of Oreokastro 15 km from Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. Oreokastro is practically a suburb of Thessaloniki. The school is built on top of a hill, in the edge of the town, surrounded by woods. There are 14 classrooms situated in two buildings. The majority of the students of the 2nd General Lyceum of Oreokastro have high academic ambitions and they are very successful in their entry exams in the University. Students’ level of English is B2 and C1 according to the European Framework for foreign languages. The Headmaster and the teachers encourage students to participate in various national contests (for Mathematics, Science, Rhetoric, Poetry, Robotics in schools, F1 in schools). Students of 2nd General Lyceum of Oreokastro have participated and sometimes ranked highly.

LYCéE POLYVALENT BOISJOLY POTIER, LE TAMPON RéUNION, FRANCE www.lyc-bpotier.ac-reunion.fr/bjp.fr

The Boisjoly-Potier school gather 1250 students and 127 teachers. It is a school which hosts two entities: a general high school and vocational school. The project presented here comes from the general high school.

We are in the highlands of Reunion with a context marked by the insularity and long distance to Europe (10 000 km). Europe sometimes seems very far for our students, we are an outermost region of the European Union.

We have also a very disadvantaged public: Reunion, with an unemployment rate above 35%, is the most affected by unemployment region of France. Specifically, in Le Tampon city more than one two students have its two parents who are inactive. Like in the other parts of the island, the students of the school come from diverse backgrounds (religion, ethnic group, social level) and they come from both parts of the town (50 % are rural and 50 % are urban).

Students benefit from a very low cultural openness, have little access to culture. Nearly 90% of our students have never left the island, are Creole and have little opportunity to practice foreign languages. The high school is often the only place where they have access to culture.

It is important to consider that many of them struggle to learn another foreign language whilst also speaking Creole at home. The majority has never travelled outside Reunion due to financial constraints and therefore has limited experience and knowledge of life in other countries. An international partnership would not only motivate them to learn a foreign language but also strengthen their awareness of European citizenship. The high school is very well known for its expertise in few areas:

- Sustainable development education: for 6 years our students have studied sustainable development into an optional subject with interdisciplinarity and interactive and active method based on groups work, outdoor activities and autonomy. We were awarded on the highest level of Sustainable development teaching ability in Reunion (academic label level 3) and national ("eco- ecole label" for the fourth year)

- We also have an audio visual class which is involved in the different project in the high school

- The school is also well known for its investment and quality of language learning. We've implemented a experimental class to help the student to be more confident in speaking in english ("english in all the subjects introduce progrissvely all along the school year). This project is awarded as "label des langues" (the only one school awarded in France)

- we're also involved in a academic KA1 to renew the classroom methodology. A group of 20 teachers are involved in this project in order to make more efficient the teaching in the high school.