DIREZIONE DIDATTICA 8° CIRCOLO PIACENZA

Our public school organisation is VIII Circolo and is made up by two Primary schools: Don Minzoni and Carella ( with 28 classes: 638 pupils and 66 teachers) and 5 Pre-Primary schools: Don Minzoni, Carella, Vaiarini , Besurica And Vallera ( with 15 sections: 380 kids and 40 teachers).

These schools are located in Piacenza, in the North West of Italy, not far from Milan. Piacenza is a quite small town, with a rich historical background, since it was founded by Romans, on the right side of river Po. In our classes we have some children with different cultures and languages, coming from East Europe, South America or China. Moreover there are pupils with special needs or disabilities who need support and interaction with schoolmates.

Therefore the priority is for educational projects to encourage the use of a plurality of languages and tools. In fact we use different methods and promote real experiences in order to offer our children an active and integrated learning, taking into account emotional, social, physical ,and cultural aspects ,in a word “ real life". There are teachers formed in Feuerstein method , Cooperative learning, Life skills, CLIL and Technologies, Coding and Robotics, Dyslexia, Special Needs, and update their competence with training courses.

We take special care in healthy education, with projects as Pedibus (walk to school); Ortoincondotta ( healthy eating with good practices as gardening lab at school for slow food/ km 0); Infea (ecological curriculum of school for a sustainable development of the community and the global environment); Sport training and cooperation with Sport clubs; Music Projects with young school choir and teacher choir, Theatre, Art, Science, Archeological labs, Cooking lab with typical, traditional food and slow food.

We also work in a network of schools, for preventing early school leaving and for the integration of pupils of different nationality ; cooperate with cultural and public organisations. We are implementing technological tools and their use in teaching with European Social Fund Grants, from this year we have two English Labs and White Interactive Boards . We have a National and an European project with Robotic and Coding activities and in a class it’s a CLIL path,too...Wonderful experience for children ( 4- 10 years old) and teachers in English,too. We had a National Excellence CLIL and eTools Project with a local schoolnet : "Goal in rete",too. The last Erasmus Ka1 has strengthened the continuity of the two schools orders, introducing English teaching in Pre-Primary and CLIL in Primary schools, thanks to training courses (also online Techno-CLIL EVO 2016- 2017)and job shadowing...abroad, the interaction with European partner schools, the improvement of digital skills with courses supported with the European Social Fund Grants . We promote the inclusion of children with special needs and the enhancement of gifted pupils opportunities.