Good Behaviour - a rainbow that colours our life

.

Good Behaviour A rainbow that colours our life

Lifelong Learning Programme ComeniusSchool Partnership 2008 ‐ 2010

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Good Behaviour – a rainbow that colours our life – 2008/2010 3

Index of the E-Book

General

information

about the

Project

Summary of the Project

Students and teachers involved

Coordinating school

Partner schools

General objectives of the Partnership

European added value

Objectives, subjects and problems

Dissemination and use of results

page 04

page 04

page 05 - 06

page 07

page 08

page 09 - 10

page 11

Introduction Introduction to the work

page 13

Chapter I

Questionnaires

Stories

Stickers

Proverbs

Multilingual Dictionary

Website and blogs

Addressing others

page 15

page 18

page 20

page 22

page 26

page 28

page 29

Chapter II

The impact of a sample of activities,

suggestions of how to use these activities

in the promotion of:

Good Behaviour

Good Manners

Interpersonal relations

Pages 32 - 34

Chapter III

Travelling character

Didactical Game

Songs

Comic strips

pages 36 - 48

page 49

page 51

page 52

Chapter IV

Activities specific to each

partner institution and impact

of the project inside each

school community

pages 58 -97

Conclusion

Conclusion Pages 99 -100


Summary of the Project

We joined to work on a Project about behaviour, good manners and interpersonal relations. These times of rapid social change have altered behaviour and the quality of interpersonal relations. The school has a role in the identification and development of appropriate responses to this challenge with a view to supporting and encouraging young people towards responsible citizenship. The project involved children from 4 to 15 years old from a wide variety of partner institutions. Our goal was to make vertical and horizontal links, learn about each other, from each other and find or invent new approaches to help each child in developing emotional and social intelligence, a basic behaviour culture and awareness of its importance. Specific activities were organised to motivate and encourage children to active participation in and evaluation of all stages of the Project. By establishing a direct relation between what we call “A good behaviour” and the Heritage and the Traditional Culture of each one of the countries, we aimed to provide an interest, awareness and a sensibility in each of our students towards artistic, social and ethical values, a sense of responsibility and respect, to enhance tolerance in accordance with common European values.

Students and teachers involved

Name of participating organisation Country Total nr of pupils involved

Total nr of staff involved

Osnovna šola Idrija Slovenia 650 32 Vrtec Idrija Slovenia 147 16 Scoala “Simion Barnutiu” Romania 275 20 Yarnfield Primary School - Birmingham UK 300 10 Istituto Comprensivo “C. Carminati” Italy 400 20 Wallands CP School - Lewes UK 440 20 Ovens National School Ireland 320 16 Externato Santa Catarina Portugal 150 9 St Joseph Junior School Sliema Malta 125 8 Halil Gelendost Primary School Turkey 40 8 2407 159


Coordinating School of the Project

Slovenija

Osnovna Šola Idrija Lapajnetova 50 - 5280 Idrija

http://www.osnovna-sola-idrija.si [email protected]

Partner Schools of the Project

Ireland

Ovens National School, Ovens, Co. Cork

http://www.ovensns.com [email protected]

Italia

Istituto Comprensivo “C. Carminati” Via Dante, 4 - Lonate Pozzolo (Varese)

http://www.ic-lonatepozzolo.it [email protected]

Malta

St Joseph Junior School Sliema Cathedral Street - Sliema

[email protected]

Portugal

Externato Santa Catarina Rua Padre José da Felicidade Alves nr 3 1465-688 Cruz Quebrada

http://www.santacatarina-ext.pt/ [email protected]


Romania

Şcoala Simion Bărnutiu Dorobantilor Street – 72 400609 CLUJ – NAPOCA

http://barnutiu.scoli.edu.ro [email protected]

[email protected]

Slovenija

Vrtec Idrija Prelovčeva 11 - 5280 Idrija

http://www.vrtec-idrija.si [email protected]

United

Kingdom

Wallands CP School Gunreda Road - BN7 1PU Lewes

http://www.wallandsprimary.com [email protected]

Yarnfield Primary School Yarnfield Road - B11 3PJ Birmingham

http://www.yarnfld.bham.sch.uk [email protected]

.

Turkey

Naşide Halil Gelendst İlköğretim Okulu Hizirbey Mh. 32100 Isparta

www.nasidehalil.com.tr [email protected]

.

The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree.

Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670)


.

“Part of the Lifelong Learning Programme, Comenius seeks to develop knowledge and understanding among young people and educational staff of the diversity of European cultures, languages and values. It helps young people acquire the basic life skills and competences necessary for their personal development, for future employment and for active citizenship.” in http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme/doc84_en.htm

(9th

April 2010)

In this project we decided to follow these objectives and goals:

General objectives of the Partnership

- To develop the European dimension at all levels, in order to emphasise the

spirit of the European citizenship, re-evaluating the cultural heritage of each participating country;

- To contribute to the improvement of linguistic competences and also knowledge of the languages of partner countries. This will broaden horizons and will contribute to the intercultural dimension of education;

- To encourage connections between the pupils from Europe and contributes to their intercultural education;

- To contribute to a larger and more intense cooperation between the partner institutions emphasising their intellectual and teaching potential;

- To encourage teacher and pupil mobility; - To give pupils and teachers from the participating countries an opportunity

to work together on topics of mutual interest; - To promote the Europeans values that will provide our pupils with a training

to become perfectly integrated European citizens; - To develop the necessary skills for creating projects in all fields of activities ; - To enhance skills in the use of ICT; - To enhance communication and personal skills; - To increase self-esteem and confidence; - To encourage professional development and educational innovation, - To realise all the activities planned, leaving each partner space for new

initiatives and creativity.


European added value

.

This partnership is considered to be beneficial because it aims to enhance the quality of and reinforce the European dimension of school education, by encouraging transnational cooperation among schools and contributing to professional development of staff who are directly involved in school education, to promote intercultural awareness and dialogue, the ability to communicate and to promote an interest in learning modern languages with pupils and staff… Besides this we claim that by establishing a direct relation between what we call “A good behaviour” and the Heritage and the Traditional Culture of each one of the countries, we will provide an interest and an awareness in each one of our students towards artistic, social and ethical values, a sense of responsibility and respect, and will enhance tolerance in accordance with common European values. One of the aims of our project is to show and prove that understanding of European citizenship should start with valuing all of the different identity layers which define each of us and show children

We are convinced that cooperation between European schools is an effective way to support integration and intercultural dialogue.

the path from the local, regional, and national identity to the European citizenship.

We are also sure that by going behind the tourist facade to look at the very rich and unknown historical and cultural background of partner countries, a Comenius project will supply our students and teachers with a great opportunity to meet people from other countries, learn to value and respect both one's own and other peoples' values and cultures and help them fight against prejudices

.

The project will contribute to the sharing of resources (existing or newly created) by undertaking the collection of information about available teaching materials. It will also provide a blog /forum on the Project web site for discussion of behaviour / manners / interpersonal relations matters and offer the necessary channels for the easy and direct communication and exchange of views among teachers and pupils in Europe.

All the above mentioned is, of course, a great benefit for partner institutions to promote the quality of their work in the broadest sense.


Objectives, subjects, problems

. To analyze the situation in the field of behaviour, manners and interpersonal relations and

not only inside schools;

To discover attitudes and opinions about the importance of politeness;

To make vertical ( age of pupils) and horizontal ( different countries) links and comparisons;

To exchange information about the work being carried out in this field in partner schools;

To reflect together upon the results of inquiries, problems and how to face them;

To compare School systems and integration of these topics in the curriculum;

To analyze the role of family, school and social surroundings;

To encourage students , teachers, parents and others to give more emphasize to behaviour, teaching and reinforcing good manners, interpersonal relations

To help teachers develop effective strategies for good behaviour management;

To share achievements and experience in developing social and emotional intelligence and social skills;

To promote creativity of teachers in finding and/or inventing new convenient teaching strategies that could help promote good behaviour and awareness of its importance;

To share teaching styles in the field of behaviour, good manners, interpersonal relations;

To improve teachers’ abilities and methodology by creating new teaching instruments;

To provide final products that can be shared and used by participants and others even after the Project is finished;

To promote developing of emotional and social intelligence with children;

To motivate each child to be actively involved;

To establish a direct relation between what we call “A good behaviour” and the Heritage and the Traditional Culture;


To learn about different cultures;

To involve as many students, parents and teachers as possible;

To involve seniors ( retired teachers, grandparents and other volunteers );

To involve associated partners actively;

To develop creativity and abilities of pupils

and their culture awareness;

To promote mobility;

To make the pupils aware of the concepts of identity and diversity within the European community and of the importance of a tolerant, open-minded attitude;

To identify common features and difference, their transnational significance in establishing common values of the European spirituality and to make pupils aware of their belonging to the community at the local, regional and European level;

To promote active citizenship;

To promote language awareness of modern languages used in partner countries and early foreign language learning;

To put into practice abilities to communicate in foreign languages and use modern means of communication (email, internet, messengers, Skype) for children and teachers;

To put into practice the use mathematical tools;

To encourage and promote ICT ability and skills in teachers and children;

To develop pupils’ personal behaviour and social skills;

To evaluate partnership and work inside partner institutions;

To create “Comenius Corners” in all partner institutions;

To disseminate the results.


Dissemination and use of results

The entire project will be presented to pupils, parents and school boards as well as to local communities and wider. All the materials and products will be shared among partners. First of all we will definitely use the results in participating organisations. It is hoped that they will be used by other institutions or individuals as a result of their dissemination in local communities, presentations to the professional public, publishing on the web site, etc. We will be glad to share our experience and present our project to wider Lifelong Learning (LL) community if possible. Inside partner institutions we will: Organise “Comenius corners” to inform the school community; Display good-behaviour signals at schools; Organise exhibitions, performances and presentations for students, teachers

and parents; Set up a resource and documentation centre using the experience and the

materials collected and designed during the project for a permanent activity; Publish information on the web site. In local communities we will:

Present the project to local authorities and sponsors; Organise exhibitions and events ( performances, etc); Present the project in the mass media, web site, CD and DVD; Present the work to associated partners; Create workshops for parents and/or public in general, as well as dealing with

some questions related to the project. In the wider community we will: Present the work to associated partners; Present the project in the mass media; Present the project to professional public at meetings and seminars.


“Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau


Introduction

The project, “Good Behaviour, a rainbow that colours our life” was first proposed by Mrs. Vasilija Kobal, a teacher who has had wide experience of working in Comenius projects. She had observed that children’s behaviour was no longer an integral part of their training and felt that a study of current practice would best be pursued by a dedicated team of enthusiasts such as those who participate in trans‐national collaborative projects.

Thus the project was initiated and in this the final product, we hope to give the reader an overview of the processes which formed the 2 year work of this project. Beginning with a Preparatory meeting in Birmingham,, in December 2008, representatives from the 10 project schools met and prepared a detailed proposal for the project on good behaviour. Considerable time was spent on planning the name for the project and emphasis at all times was placed on the positive aspects of behaviour. When the proposals for the study were approved, partner schools embarked on a journey, the fruits of which are now beginning to emerge.

Recognition of the unique cultural heritage and context of each school was the first essential step in the project plan. It was acknowledged that the combined wealth of school experiences would enable a rich, broad‐based learning experience to occur over the course of the project.

Participants agreed on the importance of studying behaviour and how best to promote good behaviour in students. The inclusion of the whole school community in all aspects of the work was regarded as essential. So parents, students and teachers in the ten schools were to be included in this ambitious study of behaviour in all its complexity.

The opportunities presented by modern technology were considered to be crucial in ensuring that the aims of the project were realised. Communication, recording and presentation of ideas were all to be enabled through the use of the wide variety of media. The project would present the partner schools with the opportunity to develop professionally as well as being the forum for many exciting and innovative developments both within the school and in the wider community.

It was hoped that when completed, the project would provide some insights into behaviour in modern society. What are the expectations of society in general? What sort of behaviour do we expect from children and how do we set about trying to achieve it? Do children value good behaviour? Does society value it and if so how does it set about attaining it?

Through a variety of tasks, challenging and enjoyable, the past two years have seen the development of a wide range of resources and studies, which will be summarised in this book. We hope that they will be the foundation for some worthwhile future insights into Good Behaviour in modern society.

.



This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Chapter 01

Questionnaires Stories Stickers Proverbs

Multilingual Dictionary Website and blogs Addressing others

page 15 page 18 page 20 page 22 page 26 page 28 page 29

Good Behaviour – a rainbow that colour our life – 2008/2010 15

Chapter I ‐ Questionnaires

If you want a wise answer, ask a reasonable question.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749‐1832) German poet, novelist and dramatist

The first task undertaken by the Comenius project group was the collection of data about the views of the whole school community on behaviour and manners as it currently manifests itself. A very comprehensive questionnaire was designed and distributed and a wide range of information was elicited and gathered. The data which has been garnered is in no way a scientific summary and is qualitative in nature rather than strictly quantitative. Therefore no claims will be made with respect to the statistical value of the survey. A consensus across the partners was established in very many areas. The questionnaires were given to parents, teachers , other school staff and children Parent response A total of 900 parents of children aged from 4 to 14 were surveyed. Parents are the first educators of children and they have the most important role in the development of attitudes and patterns of behaviour. The project group considered their response to be crucial to the progress of the project. Almost all agreed that children and people in general are less polite now than in the past and expressed a desire to see good manners and politeness re‐instated as important aspects of social behaviour. Their expectations of the school in the field of behaviour, good manners and interpersonal relations included the promotion and delivery of the following good behaviour: Respect, Politeness, Manners and Good relationships. The overwhelming majority of parents stated that they can best influence their children’s behaviour by

Providing good example.

Giving love , respect and understanding

Positive reinforcement

Discussing behaviour and its consequences

Teaching good manners at home

Having high expectations around behaviour

Parents place a high value on respect, commitment and sensibility, good manners and good behaviour, cooperation, kindness, good communication, respectful greeting, courtesy, careful listening and eye contact. Parents consider that good behaviour is a very important aspect of a child’s development and welcomed the study on behaviour as a positive step. The vast majority of parents expressed a keen interest in the project and said that they were willing to help out with any tasks which would arise.


Children in the project institutions 1,150 children from the project schools were asked their opinions about what constitutes bad behaviour. Their ideas were similar across all the countries each with their different backgrounds and cultures. There is a clear pattern of agreement which provides a good basis for the beginning of such a project. Children care as much as adults about behaviour and they consider it to be extremely important that people behave well. Children‘s opinions about behaviour and good manners were summarised in the following manner. They think it is polite:

To have good manners

To listen

To help

To look at people as you speak

To respect others

Children are upset when people are mean, when they display bad manners and when they lack respect. They dislike selfishness, ignorance and unpleasantness. Their models of good behaviour are 1. Parents, 2. Teachers, 3.Relatives, 4.Older people, 5.Grandparents and TV stars. As children get older their role models become less easily identifiable and behaviour is increasingly influenced by peers and wider social influences. Teachers and Educators Finally the third group of people, teachers and educators were surveyed about their views on behaviour. A total of 185 people were surveyed. The role of the school in their view is to teach children

How to treat others with respect

The effect bad behaviour has on others

Knowledge of basic behaviour rules – politeness, respect for people and

property, manners

Know and share basic values

Learning through example

How to behave in different situations

Etiquette

Social skills


Each country has its own curriculum and has a different way of dealing with topics which relate to behaviour. There are specific subjects in some countries while in others it is encouraged as part of a wider programme. Most people state that while lessons on behaviour are included in Social and Personal education and Civics there is room for more emphasis. There is a need to deal with aspects of behaviour in a specific and direct manner and much is left up to individual teacher and classroom practice. They feel that more can be done and that constant reinforcement is required. Time can be a problem. A whole school approach is vital. There is room for improvement in many aspects of behaviour. Parents and teachers can help by modelling good behaviour, establishing clear limits, praising and rewarding, explaining rules and treating children with respect. Some activities which promote better behaviour were identified. Leading by good example, discussion, advice, targeted lessons, role play and conflict resolution strategies were among those listed. Teacher expectations of Parents Teachers expect parents to instil and encourage good manners and support the school’s policy and sanctions. Teachers think that good example should be set and that the positive effects of good behaviour should be emphasised. More attention should be paid to children’s needs and problems so that an understanding of behaviour can be attained. Conflict resolution strategies should be taught, Children should be enabled to deal with disappointment and failure. Most institutions reported positive co‐operation with parents. Teachers and educators are happy with the support and input from parents. They feel the positive outcome of this is that parents know that their children are in safe caring hands. When there is a culture of shared values, the same things are considered important. Some establishments have home school links. Home school link teachers visit homes and have an understanding of the children in their care. Other schools report an open door policy. Close co‐operation and involvement has positive outcomes for all.When difficulties or problems arise things are not always clear. In some countries, parents only come to the school when there is a serious problem. In other countries, there is ongoing contact on a regular basis. Co‐operation in the event of problem behaviour isn’t easy to achieve. Expectations about the role of the school may be different. When this happens, problems can arise. If parents expect teachers to teach children everything, then their parental role may be diminished. The questionnaire findings provided a solid basis for proceeding with the activities of the project. It was clear from the findings that all parties have a common interest in the promotion of good behaviour for successful living.


Chapter I – Stories

Stories Activity

The partner schools chose one or more of their own traditional stories that were used to help promote good behaviour and positive values. Stories are a powerful and effective tool that children always embrace enthusiastically. Stories provide a common base for shared experience which transcends cultural and language differences. The stories chosen provided the children with interest in and an awareness of artistic, social and ethical values. In the partner schools many activities were explored to help develop positive behaviour. Areas included were:

Drama

Music

Creative writing

PowerPoint presentations

Art

Displays

Video

List of stories

Ireland The Selfish Giant (Oscar Wilde)

Italy Pinocchio (Traditional)

Malta Gahan and the door

Portugal Os Ovos Misteriosos (Luísa Ducla Soares ) O Caldo de Pedra – Stone Soup (Traditional)

Romania Mr Goe (T. L. Caragiale)

Slovenia (Osnavna Sola)

Peter Klepec (Traditional)

O Povodnem Mozu – About the River Man (Traditional)

Mojca Pokrasculja (Traditional)

Povodnjak in makov Škrat (Traditional)

Slovenia (Vrtec)

Pod Medvedovim Dežnikom‐ Under the Bear Umbrella (Svetlana Makarovič)

Turkey Four traditional stories about family relationships and friendship

Two close friends

Lazy son

mother‐in‐law / daughter

war‐time story

UK (Birmingham) The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Traditional)

UK (Lewes) The Little Red Hen (Traditional)

The Enormous Turnip


Each school planned activities suitable to its particular situation. Some schools involved specific age groups whilst others involved the whole school community. Activities chosen depended on the age of those children participating. Many interesting and varied products, both in English and in each partner’s home language were produced from the children’s exploration of behaviour displayed in the stories. The products included:

Books

DVD / film

PowerPoint presentations

Art (media including; posters, drawings, illustrations, collage)

Dramatic interpretations

All partner schools exchanged products and the children of each country experienced traditional stories representative of diverse cultures. The Comenius web site enabled each institution to access all stories.


Chapter I – Stickers

Stickers

This activity was devised by the Maltese school and was one of the first tasks undertaken by the partner schools.

The Learning intentions of this activity were;

to learn how to explain good behaviour, as well as, to give concrete examples of it

to learn how to convey a concept creatively: What is good behaviour?

to use Creative Writing (in the form of slogans) and Drawing/Art as a stimulus for discussion and Citizenship Education

to adopt a multi‐curricular approach to the Comenius theme: Creative Writing, Art, Citizenship Education

to promote good work by holding a stickers’ competition and publishing the best work according to set criteria

Activities for stickers The following instructions were given to teachers and students;

Read and dicuss stories from the different countries showing good behaviour. This may take place during a Literacy/ Citizenship Education lesson. Draw common themes from these stories. Elicit differences, too

Discuss good behaviour across the curriculum by citing different examples; in so doing, elicit the pupils’ own definitions, examples and situations where good behaviour is/should be/can be manifested.

Brainstorm these definitions, situations and examples and set a date for the Creative Writing activity. The pupils are to write their slogans on good behaviour

Set a date for the Drawing/Art activity. Discuss with the pupils that their drawing is to explain their slogans on good behaviour. Make sure that the pupils are aware of the ground rules of the activity since each entry is to be considered as part of the Stickers’ Competition


At the end of the activity, collect the drawings and discuss as closure; at the same time, facilitating Art/Drawing Interpretation

Success Criteria;

I know what good behaviour means and I can give examples of it

I can explain the concept of good behaviour in a creative way

I can participate in a discussion on good behaviour, as well as, present my ideas to an audience

I can demonstrate good behaviour

I can write slogans promoting a positive message

I can participate in a competition and adhere to a set of criteria

The drawings are to be submitted for selection according to the relevant criteria (and closing date) set by the Comenius Teacher Team. These criteria are to be made known to all the participants.

Each country selected a representative sticker from their school. The stickers were printed on a sheet and each school was presented with the complete range of stickers. These were printed by each school as they chose.


Chapter I – Proverbs

Proverbs are sayings which are popularly known and repeated. They express a truth based on common sense or practical experience. Proverbs are often borrowed from similar languages and cultures. There are many proverbs, dealing with various aspects of human life – many, of course, are about good or bad behaviour. The reason we decided to use proverbs as a means of learning about good behaviour is because they are simple, easy to understand, and yet they can be applied to a number of different aspects of behaviour. Proverbs most commonly express what we call 'traditional' values and provide us with an insight into the manners and values of past generations. Young people today don't use proverbs, and very often are not familiar with even the most common ones. There are many proverbs available in each language. Not all of them are directly connected with what we would want to pass on to our children in terms of behaviour, nor are they all appropriate for the different age groups involved in the project. Therefore, the first thing we did at each school was to select three proverbs ‐ one for each age group. The proverbs selected were: Ireland:

1. Ni neart go cur le chéile (There is no strength without unity.) 2. Is minic a bhris beal duine a shrón (It's often a person's mouth broke his

nose. (Be careful about what you say) ) 3. Bionn an fhirinne searbh (The truth is bitter.)

England – Lewes:

1. Don't make a mountain out of a mole hole. 2. No man is an island.

England – Birmingham:

1. Too many cooks spoil the broth. 2. There's no 'I' in team. 3. Honesty is the best policy.


Italy:

Primary school: 1. La cortesia non costa niente (Courtesy costs nothing.) 2. L'unione fa la forza (Many hands make light work.)

Secondary school

1. However famous and important you may be, without good manners you're merely an ass.

2. Good manners conquer all 3. Pride comes before a fall. 4. A stitch in time saves nine.

Portugal:

1. A boda e a baptizado não vás sem ser convidado! (Don’t go to a wedding or a baptism without being invited.)

2. A união faz a força. (The union gives the strength.)

3. O saber não ocupa lugar. (Knowledge doesn’t occupy any space.)

4. Para ensinar é preciso aprender. (To teach it is necessary to learn.) 5. Junta‐te aos bons serás como eles, junta‐te aos maus serás pior do que eles.

(Join to the good ones and you will be like them, join to the bad ones and you will be worse than them.)

6. No aperto e no perigo se conhece o amigo. (In the pressure and in the danger we will discover the friend.)

7. Amigo verdadeiro vale mais do que dinheiro. (Truthful friends are worth more than money.)

8. Amor com amor se paga. (We pay love with love.) Romania:

1. Bine facti, bine primesti. (Your good deeds will always be returned.) 2. Politetea e cheia de Aur. (Politeness is a golden key.)

Slovenia – Osnovna šola Idrija:

1. Laž ima kratke noge. (A lie never gets you far.) 2. Kjer vsi govorijo, nihče ne posluša. (Where everybody is talking, nobody is

listening.) 3. Še pes ima rad pri jedi mir. (Even a dog likes to eat in peace.)

Turkey:

1. Tatlı dil yılanı deliğinden çıkarır. ( Sweet speech can get a snake from its hole.)

2. İyilik yap denize at balık bilmezse Halik bilir. (Behave well and throw it to the sea, if the fish don’t understand the value of it, God does.)

3. Ne ekersen onu biçersin. (What you will find depends on what you do.)


4. Bana bir harf öğretenin kırk yıl kölesi olurum. (I will be the slave of one who

teaches me even a letter. (Saying of Islam Prophet Hz.Muhammed))

5. Söz ola kese savaşı, söz ola kestire başı. (There is speech that finishes a war, there is speech that is the reason for a war.)

6. İyi dost kötü günde belli olur. (You can see if your friends are true or not on a bad day.)

Malta: 1. A liar is not believed when he tells

the truth. 2. Those who live on lies choke on

truth. 3. Though a lie be swift, the truth

overtakes it. Vrtec Idrija:

1. KADAR VSI GOVORIJO, NIHČE NE POSLUŠA (Where everyone is talking, no one is listening.)

2. KJER OSEL SEDI, DLAKO PUSTI. (A fool never leaves without leaving a mark.)

3. LEPA BESEDA, LEPO MESTO NAJDE (A kind word finds a kind place.)

Using proverbs in the classroom: After selecting the proverbs and sayings we’ve discussed their meanings with the children. The process of selection itself was a valuable opportunity for talking about their meaning and importance in our everyday lives. The children learnt a lot about the origin of certain proverbs and their use in the past. The next step was to try and work on the proverbs in a number of different possible ways. The proverbs could be discussed, referenced to different stories, films, plays, real‐life experiences, etc. The students engaged in a number of activities – acting out the proverbs, miming them, writing songs (hip hop/rap songs seemed to be very popular) and poetry. The students also drew pictures, comics of proverbs. The older students have done some creative writing about the topic. The proverbs were therefore used as a basis for a number of activities, all connected with good behaviour. For the final product – a CD with a collection of the materials prepared by all the partners, each partner school’s task was to choose three proverbs and present them in such a way that their meaning would be clear to the others.


We have received a selection of videos, stories, and other material that have been put together on a CD. This can now be used as a database of ideas, examples and materials on how one can work with traditional proverbs. Proverbs are a valuable source of information about the traditional values present in a culture and by comparing the proverbs which were selected at individual schools we can see the specific characteristics of individual cultures, as well as the similarities. Many values are universal and certain proverbs are very similar, despite the differences in region, language, habits and religion. This activity has been a valuable source of knowledge about individual country’s tradition, and a great experience for the students. We can now use the finished collected and sorted material in class as a resource with information on morals and values across Europe. We can also research the differences and similarities among us, thus again greatly contributing to intercultural exchange, raised awareness and improved communication.

Fun with Proverbs


Chapter I – Multilingual Dictionary of Good Behaviour

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives”

Antony Robbins (American advisor to leaders)

Multilingual Dictionary of Good Behaviour One final product of the first year of our Comenius project is the Multilingual Dictionary of Good Behaviour. The goal of the dictionary is to encourage communication among children of different nationalities, to promote intercultural education while keeping in mind the theme of the project: good behaviour and communication in different situations. This dictionary is meant to be used by children of different ages and, because children like stories, it was devised as one. We think that, through stories, manners can be improved. The dictionary begins with the story “The Magic Word” by V. Oseeva. The first part of the story stirs children’s curiosity by encouraging them to find out the magic word. But before revealing it, the story stops and makes room for the dictionary that contains words and phrases of good behaviour in different situations. The last part of the story follows, as a conclusion. We find out that the magic word is “please”, one of the words to be found in the dictionary, and, by using these words, and the rules of communication; we can improve our relationship with others. This dictionary has contributions from all the project partners (teachers and children). Its design was conceived and worked out by the Romanian Team. The task of each project partner was to represent communicative situations by using a photo and to present audio files of all the words/phrases in the dictionary in their own language. Each partner school recorded words and phrases pertaining to specific situations. Ireland ‐ Ovens National School, Ovens, Co. Cork ‐ Asking permission Italy ‐ Istituto Comprensivo, Lonate Pozzolo ‐ Starting a conversation Malta ‐ St Joseph Junior School Sliema ‐ Thanks Portugal ‐ Externato Santa Catarina, Cruz Quebrada ‐ Greetings – meeting Slovenia ‐ Osnovna šola, Idrija ‐ Meeting people (2) ‐ Questions an response Slovenia ‐ Vrtec Idrija ‐ Greetings ‐ on parting Turkey ‐ Naside Halil Gelendost Primary School, Isparta ‐ At the table UK ‐ Yarnfield Primary School, Birmingham ‐ Apologies, expressions of regret UK ‐ Wallands CP School Lewes ‐ Sussex ‐ Wishes (1) Romania ‐ Şcoala “Simion Bărnuțiu”, Cluj Napoca ‐ Meeting people (1), Seasons Wishes

In order to be easily used the dictionary was created in Power Point and written on CD, as well as in the form of a booklet. Each slide of the dictionary refers to a communicative situation; it contains:

phases/words used in the particular situation written in English;

a photo for the situation;

the language of the partner countries;


To hear the audio files of the words on the slide, you have to click on the language you are interested in.

Photos were taken at each school for the multi‐lingual dictionary. Each school is represented in the following picture collage.

Creating this dictionary gave partners the opportunity to reflect more on ways of behaving in order to try to improve it. Working at it the students “learned by doing”, the rules of communication, the benefits of working in groups, realising thus, the importance of good behaviour in society. We are sure that students will enjoy learning about good behaviour by using this dictionary.


http://behaviourproject.110mb.com/

Chapter I – Web site and blogs

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."

Aristotle

The Web site

Creating a design for the web site of the project had a central aim: the effective and efficient navigation of information on pages by everyone who surfs the site, in order that all the important information could be available.

We tried to avoid placing too much information on any single page for ease of navigation and basic information access.

The Blogs The experience through blogs, in this project, started with a need: to spread information between partner schools and school communities.

The key ideas of this activity were; to share knowledge and activities, to create critical conversation and connections in the learning experience, to transform live experiences into public information, to invite users to participate in a larger community, to create an instrument in the information technology world, to learn how to participate in and not just to learn about, to perform critical thinking, creative narrative, formal and informal discourse, research and contribution, linking, writing for others, taking creative risks and collaborating.

By publishing and sharing content regularly through blogging, readers keep in touch with current ideas, news, and information. Blogging helps them to communicate and interact with members of the community who they may traditionally have had a tougher time reaching. This includes parents and anyone in the community who is concerned about education. Above all it is a question of engagement with the content and with the authors of what we read—reflecting, criticising, questioning, and reacting.

“Blogging is using a new medium for what it is good for ‐ connecting and interacting.” G e o r g e S i e m e n

Italy Instituto Compr. Carlo Carminati

Ireland Ovens School

England Wallands CP

School

SloveniaVrtec ‐ Idrija

Portugal Externato

Santa Catarina


Chapter I – How we address others

“Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable”

W. H. Auden (1907‐1973) English‐born poet and man of letters

How do we address others? The “Good Behaviour” project partners decided to examine how we address others and to make cross‐cultural comparisons. A survey of partner schools was conducted. Each school was sent a questionnaire by the Irish school which contained a list of the people who are encountered in daily life. Family members, relatives, friends, neighbours, professionals, religious, teachers sports coaches, referees were included in this list. The aim of the questionnaire was to see whether a common title existed for certain people and if so, to identify such people. Some interesting trends emerged from the survey of partner schools. Many questions were raised and discussion topics were identified which might be useful for school policy makers. Family members, mothers, fathers, grandparents all had individual special titles in the language of each country. Some people such as doctors, policemen, priests are addressed in an identical manner in all the countries… i.e. there is a single title for them, and it is used across the board. There are noticeable differences across the countries in relation to the teachers and school principals. A wide variety of forms of address occur. Different constructions exist for the titles such as title + first name, title on its own, headmaster or principal, Mr. Principal etc. Also, Principals/Teachers are the only people in authority on the list that are given nicknames (derogatory or otherwise) possibly due to the level of interaction combined with uncertainty over the level of respect deemed necessary or required. Questions raised.

Is giving a title a show of respect?

Does the existence of a particular title indicate clear respect and are there

areas of uncertainty in modern society?

Are authority figures clearly identifiable by specific titles and if not, is it

something that should be discussed and clarified.

Schools may wish to clarify what is considered respectful in their particular context. Modern society doesn’t provide explicit expectations and it is difficult for children to know what precisely is required.


Nicknames and their use Many people are known to others by a name which is not their proper name and so a nickname is commonly used. A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing. Anecdotal evidence suggests that children like this if it is a term of endearment although it may not exist outside of the home. If it is a teasing or mocking term then it can be used in an offensive or derogatory manner. Nicknames are common in online situations and indeed are recommended for use in order to preserve individual identity online chat rooms and networking. There are many different aspects to the use of nicknames which affect the feelings and outcome of their impact. Pupils' nicknames for teachers or for other children who may be victims of bullying are usually clandestine and serve a reference function rather than acting as terms of address. Many nicknames express contempt or dislike, or attempt to get back or get even, or to put one over on an individual. The majority of names draw upon physical characteristics of the target person. Although nicknames may be derogatory in intent, wit and aptness seem to have a moderating effect on the offensiveness of nicknames.

Does a nickname change a relationship?

Who selects the nickname?

Does it make a difference?

Does it make a difference to the person being addressed?

What about the expectations of the person addressing?

Is this all that is required?

How is behaviour affected? In conclusion, the use of nicknames and the question of how we address others raise issues for school communities. It may be useful to consider whether there is any connection between how we address others and the show of respect for individuals in the community. Do children like to control how they are addressed or named? Anecdotal evidence suggests that they do and they feel more comfortable when they are shown respect. Addressing others in a manner which pleases them is an essential part of respectful behaviour. This may be included in the school’s code of conduct.

.


Lifelong Learning Programme Comenius School Partnership 2008 - 2010


Chapter 02

Activities undertaken to develop emotional and social intelligence in the promotion of:

Good Behaviour

Good Manners Interpersonal relations

Pages 32 - 34


Chapter II

"Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them."

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

In this chapter, each of the partners reported on what they did to develop emotional and social intelligence by activities in the field of

Good behaviour

Good manners

Interpersonal relations A complete list of all activities and an overview of the age‐groups involved is provided in the Appendix. Different activities were undertaken to meet children’s needs and motivate them to be actively involved. Some common activities were agreed upon, and this left partners the freedom to choose other ones according to their needs and preferences. A wide variety of resources from the cultural heritage of the country were used ‐ traditional stories, proverbs, sayings, songs, poetry, music and art. Since it is too early to talk about the

a) Common project activities Year 1: Questionnaire, Stories and related activities, proverbs, Stickers, Multilingual Dictionary of polite expressions, Addressing others. Year 2: Character exchange, Comic strips/cartoons, Didactical game, Songs. These are detailed in subsequent sections of this book.

b) Activities of own choice organised inside partner institutions

1. Good behaviour in the broad sense

Some of the following topics were chosen by all partners to explore behaviour in their schools and community. Topics were chosen with regard to the age of the children participating, and relevance to the school community.

Codes of conduct in society

School rules

Anti‐bullying

Human rights

Citizenship

Sourcing educational resources


Ecology

Some partner schools chose to work in the ecological areas of

Recycling

Water conservation

School garden

Eco codes A wide range of school specific tasks were completed. Ireland chose to work on reducing the incidence of bad language in the whole school community. “The apprentice Citizen” was an activity in the Italian school while Malta chose the area of Human Rights. Portugal had a “Water Day” and Romania had a whole school collection of used batteries. Slovenia Primary school focused on behaviour at school meals while in the Slovenian Kindergarten the re‐use of waste materials in Art was enjoyed by 3‐6 year olds. UK Birmingham worked on a Big Book of behaviour strategies and UK Lewes achieved a “Rights Respecting School Award” in conjunction with Unicef in the UK.

2. Good Manners Topics in this area included:

Table manners

Classroom manners

Manners at outings and cultural events

Manners in society

Church events

Good listening

Hygiene

All participating schools chose some of these topics to work and improve the children’s behaviour in the area of good manners. Turkey chose to make an award to the” cleanest class”, UK Birmingham made “Behaviour Flowers” promoting good manners, while UK Lewes used a “manners monitor” to select the politest class of the week. Discussion and role play about table manners was prepared by parents and grandparents in Slovenia Kindergarten, while in Slovenia Primary school, an ABC of good behaviour was devised. Romania had “10 minutes of politeness”, Portugal engaged in an art activity entitled “A question of values” and Malta had a rules and reward system for good behaviour. Ireland engaged in lessons about Manners and Italy worked on street rules with support from local police officers.

3. Interpersonal Relations Areas explored were:

Social exclusion/inclusion

Equality – e.g. Fair Trade

Nicknames

Acts of Kindness

Charity fundraising


All schools again chose to work in one or more of these areas to make children more aware of the wider world and its citizens and problems. Lessons about bullying were taught in Ireland. Italy linked to Project 2010: the year for combating poverty and social exclusion. Malta had a “Smiley Walk” while in Portugal children donated toys for Christmas in Solidarity. Romania organised an activity in partnership with “World Vision” and “Save the Children”, while the Slovenian Primary school conducted workshops on tolerance, equality and discrimination. Slovenia Kindergarten had guided conversations about mothers and built individual skyscrapers from kind acts. In Turkey, questionnaires were distributed to parents in order to understand their expectations while UK Birmingham held some charity events. Fair Trade was the focus of much work in UK Lewes.

Methodology and Implementation Many and varied methods were used to explore all the above areas of good behaviour in the participating schools:

Story

Poetry

Art

Music

Drama

Recitals

Workshops

Discussion

Circle time

Projects

Role play

Power points

Reward strategies

Cartoons

Competitions

Gardening

Communications In all schools parents, teachers, children and the wider community were involved in various stages of the work. Children from ages 3 – 15 participated in age appropriateprojects. School size also varied across the participating countries from 150 – 905 enrolment. Groups taking part in each activity also varied, from small groups to whole school involved.

.




Chapter 03

Travelling character Didactical Game

Songs Comic strips

page 36 page 49 page 51 page 52


Chapter III ‐ Characters

Ireland – Polite Paddy and Minnie Manners

Our characters, Polite Paddy and Minnie Manners

Polite Paddy and Minnie Manners were chosen by the children of Sixth Class in Ovens N.S. This class also chose their very apt names. They were then introduced to the whole school. The children were told they would be visiting schools in other countries learning about aspects of good behaviour, culture and school life. All classes from Junior Infants through to Third Class helped to get them ready for their travels. They gathered suitable clothes for Paddy for all possible occasions. They were very excited when all was ready and eagerly waited to hear what they would learn on their travels.

Their travels December ‐ They left for Vrtec, Idrija, Slovenia.

They spent Christmas with a child from the Kindergarten.

They learned about the City of Friendly Children – acts of kindness building towers.

They learned about proper eating habits at lunch time.

They learned polite expressions in the Slovene language.

They learned the Golden Behaviour Rules in the school

February – They went to Externato Santa Catarina, Lisbon, Portugal. They spent time in the homes of some of the children.

They experienced and learned good behaviour in the classroom.

They ate lunch with the children and learned good table manners.

They experienced the work involved in a green school.

Visiting Characters to our school Star came to Ovens from Yarnfield Primary School, Birmingham, England in January and stayed until mid February. While visiting Star learned good behaviour in the following areas

Recycling and Litter

Listening Skills

Turn Taking and Sharing

Respect Star worked with different classes and took part in games, circle time and many other activities with the children to explore the themes. Star also visited places of interest in our area with the children after school and at


weekends.

Tinka Lacemaker came from Vrtec, Idrija, Slovenia in February until April. She experienced good behaviour with the children of Ovens in the area of Classroom and School Behaviour. These themes were explored through the following headings

Listening to Instructions

Taking turns to speak in class

Respect for others – children and adults

Keeping our area tidy – classroom and outside

Tinka visited the classes and took part in games, role play and discussions to learn the good behaviour codes of Ovens School.

The Impact of Travelling Characters

The work with the travelling characters was a very positive experience in our school. The children (and staff) took a great interest in the visits and the work planned for them.

The children loved bringing the characters to all school activities and teaching

them about our school and community.

They learned about the countries where the characters came from and their schools.

They took the job of teaching good behaviour to the characters very seriously and learned a lot from this.

They took great pride in showing the characters how well they could behave and were assured this information would travel home to the various countries and schools.

They looked forward to video conferencing with the partner schools especially those hosting our characters.

The children loved to follow the trail of our own characters on their travels and the themes they were exploring.

All children are looking forward to the return of our own school characters and sharing of all they have learned.


Chapter III

Italy – Pierino Pozzolo

Our character, Pierino Pozzolo Our characer is Pierino Pozzolo. He was made to look like a “Pigotta”, the rag doll created by UNICEF. The name Pierino was chosen because in Italy there are a lot of jokes about a boy who’s a little bit naughty but fun, while the surname, Pozzolo, is the second part of our little hometown name.

His travels 19/10/2009: he arrived in Slovenia, travelling by coach; there, he was given to Mrs

Tyler who brought him to Wallands School, in England. 15/02/2010: he arrived in Portugal by plane, and from there he flew to Malta with

Mrs Ungaro and Mrs Grech Mallia.

Visiting characters

From October to February we hosted the Maltese character, Pippa Tikka. She stayed at Dante Primary School and at Brusatory Primary School, where, with the children, she learned the following topics: table manners, behaviour on school trips, road safety and etiquette (walking and cycling), respecting rules at school and respecting rules during games. Walter Wallands, instead, stayed with us from February to April. He was welcomed by the children of Volta Primary School with whom he talked about the following topics: table manners, communication with schoolmates and adults, looking after the environment, respecting rules at school and respecting rules during games. The impact on children (and not only on them...) of the work with the characters was definitely positive; in fact the children really loved to learn and to work on behaviour rules with Pippa Tikka and Walter Wallands. The two characters often went to the children’s homes and to other places where our young students usually go, such as the Sunday School and basketball matches.


Here are some pictures.

.

The three friends together

Walter Wallands with our Head Teacher

Walter Wallands with our Mayor


Chapter III

Portugal – Açorana

Our character – Açorana

Açorana was the name chosen for the Portuguese character, a sperm whale from Azores one of the regions of our country.

After an initial choice, a child that belongs to the Comenius Team of our school (the group in charge of the implementation of the Project) gave the idea to choose as a character an animal in extinction in order that we could work on behaviours preventing that new reality. Then, children in their groups/classes gave some names to the character and vote for the name Azorana.

Origin of the name

In Azores the sperm whales enjoy incomparable conditions. They are free from the threat of whalers, and are surrounded by clear water and abundant food all year round, a true sanctuary. All these conditions have created a unique relationship between the sperm whale and the Azoreans.

Therefore, the name “Açorana” comes from the name of Azores [Açores], the Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km (930 mi) from Lisbon.

Her travel 20/02/2010: Azorana went to Birmingham, with the teachers that participated in the

Study Meeting in Portugal. April 2010: Azorana will change to another partner.

Hosting Paddy and Mini Manners

The Irish characters – Paddy and Mini Manners – were hosted in our school with great enthusiasm and happiness and they spent some days in each group of the Kindergarten and in each class of the lower Primary.

Besides the attendance of school activities and study visits, they spent all weekends in some homes of students. They learned a lot about the Portuguese school and families, Behaviour attitudes, social events (Exhibitions, a match of football…), sightseeing in nature and some special places in Portugal, traditions and, above all, attitudes of citizenship on the preservation of the environment.



Romania – Păcală

Our character, Păcală The pupils from „Simion Barnutiu” School have chosen PĂCALĂ to be their character because they enjoy reading adventures that feature this character, which are great fun and many children would love to be like him. Păcală has a lot of qualities: he is optimistic, brave and hard‐working, he has self‐control, dignity and spirit of justice, and his wits and humour help him cope with any difficulties and win any confrontation. His main occupation is to help people see their flaws and get rid of them.

Through jokes and tricks he makes fun of vanity, laziness, stupidity, greediness, thriftiness, vices, wrong education and any bad behaviour. Thus, he makes people see their flaws and correct them. Children who read about his experiences and adventures get to learn a lot of things.

Origin of the name

His name is derived from the verb “a păcăli” (“to fool somebody”), so his name means “somebody who plays tricks on you”. He is just a part of pure Romanian humour. He represents the ordinary man, the average Romanian and he was a source of inspiration for many authors who wrote rhymes and stories that are read with great pleasure by children. Moreover, his words were a source of inspiration for a lot of sayings and proverbs. He has acted in many plays written for children and in puppet theatre. Movies in which he is the main character have been made over the years.

His travel

20.02.2010 – Păcală went to Idrija, Slovenia with teachers that were participating in the Study Meeting in Portugal.

April 2010 – Păcală will go to another partner.

Hosting Kekec from Slovenia

The Slovenian character stayed in our school from February to April. He was hosted by our students from primary school and they learned together about the following topics: Greetings, respecting rules at school, how to become a good listener, about Slovenia, Idrija, the Slovenian schools and families.


The students enjoyed the character and the activities that they did together. These kinds of activities increase students’ motivation and we considered that it is a positive learning experience for all. Students tried to integrate Kekec in all their other activities like: other lessons, trips, sightseeing, sports, celebrating the students’ birthdays, taking photos. They enjoyed painting and drawing Kekec, very much.

Just like our character, Păcală, Kekec will go to another partner in May.


Chapter III - Characters

Slovenia – Primary school OŠ – Kekec

Our character, Kekec Our character comes from the Slovenian fairy tales. His name is very well-known in Slovenia by people of all ages. Based on him, a lot of children's films have been made, songs recorded, and a number of institutions (kindergartens, schools…) have been named after him. He plays a part in many puppet and youth drama plays, even a magazine is named after him, as well as a climbing route, a ski-lift in Kranjska Gora, and a delicious pate is named 'Kekec’. And of course, books about Kekec are read by children as part of their reading badge at school, as well as many other people of all ages. His travels January 2010 – he arrived in England (Yarnfield Primary school, Birmingham), travelling by plane.

February 2010 – he arrived in Romania (Scoala “Simion Barnuţiu”), travelling by plane.

May 2010 – he arrived in Turkey, travelling by plane.

Visiting characters From January to February we hosted the Maltese teddy (Pippa Tikka) and the English teddy bear (Sammy). They learnt about suitable behaviour at different events, celebrations, appropriate behaviour during meal times in the school dining hall, at meals, good behaviour on the bus, in class, at days of activities, in the mountains (outdoors)...

From February to April we hosted the Romanian character (Pacala), whom we’ve been teaching primarily about behaviour at cultural events – which was also the leading topic chosen by our school.

From April to May we’ve had another guest character - the English teddy bear (Star) whom the students have been teaching about good behaviour in various situations. Into this activity the students from 1. – 5. grade (6-10 years) have been included.


The different characters have had a really positive effect on learning about good behaviour in all the participating classes. Apart from good manners, the students have at the same time got to know the interesting facts about the countries that the characters were from. Students (especially the younger ones) have really taken the characters as their own and have thus internalised the rules of behaviour in the different selected areas. The characters did not stay only inside the school – the students have taken them with them to days of activities, their birthday parties that they’ve celebrated at home, to see certain cultural events, etc. The characters have really made an impact on the students, since they have often proposed the activities to be done with the characters on their own (i.e. celebrating the birthday party (Sammy), dedicating a poem to a character, making clothes and other accessories for the characters, etc.)

All in all, the characters have become an integral part of the classes, students have had a hard time saying goodbye to them and they have hardly been able to wait for the next one to arrive. They have made learning the rules of good behaviour a lot more interesting and effective.

Some of the activities with the characters have also been captured by the cameras.

Saying goodbye to our character Kekec was really moving.

The Maltese teddy bear used to a lot of heat has tried sledging. We have taught her about the rules for safe sledging on the slope.

Pacala has been learning the traditional Idrija craft – lace-making. We’ve also taught him about our cultural traditions.


Chapter III - Characters

Slovenia – Kindergarten - Tinka Lacemaker

Characters exchange and related activities helped us bring children to a challenging topic we've been focusing on - empathy. We believe that an active learning method is very appropriate to achieve our goals of this activity, which are: promoting, recognizing and developing a sense of empathy, understanding and learning behaviour rules in the group and habits, learning about our home town and country, learning about partner schools, towns and countries. Children tried to understand the feelings and needs of someone who is far away from home. Learning the rules of good behaviour without an understanding of interpersonal relations can lead to misunderstanding of the importance of politeness. Empathy is one of the characteristics most difficult to develop, therefore the support and help of adults is very important.

Our character, Tinka Lacemaker, is a doll made by one of the grandmothers. In accordance with our local tradition, Tinka goes to lace making school, wears a dress decorated with lace and brings small pieces of lace as gifts to her hosts.

Tinka travelled in this box.

Before starting her travels around Europe, she visited all groups in our kindergarten. Children wished her a good journey and hoped she wouldn't feel lonely. They gave her some drawings to remind her of her friends while being abroad. She was also given a presentation made from some photos and comments to help her present our Kindergarten and hometown Idrija to the children in Great Britain, Ireland, Malta and Portugal. Visiting partner schools, she experienced good behaviour with the children and learned a lot about it.


Characters, visiting our Kindergarten were teddy bears: Polite Paddy from Ireland, Star from Great Britain, Pippa Tikka from Malta and Azorana, a whale from Portugal.

Children were happy to have shared everything with their guests that took an important role in their everyday life. Polite Paddy even spent Christmas in a family and witnessed all the customs and traditions. Visiting characters were presented golden behaviour rules in the groups and joined the children in discussing and illustrating them. They took part in all activities. The children enjoyed to have a look in » The Big Atlas for Small Children« and see where the characters come from. They found out that they all came from very distant places and found themselves in a completely new environment, among people they didn't know before. Children succeeded in identifying themselves with the characters and their feelings. During the hosting of characters, we have organized video conferences with the schools where the characters came from. Children could see each other, greet, introduce themselves, sing songs and listen to their siblings. They really enjoyed seeing where the character from their school was. Videoconferencing was an activity that satisfied as the children as well asthe teachers and made them feel the cooperation really functioning.



Lewes UK – Walter Wallands joins Comenius

We introduced Walter Wallands to the school through a teddy bears picnic. All of our children brought a cuddly toy to school and we had a whole school party to welcome him to our school and show him good manners. He brought the project alive for the children and provided a needed link between them and the partner schools. We told the children he would be visiting different countries in the Comenius project and learning about their schools and countries and also learning different aspects of good behaviour. He would come back and share with us what he had learnt. They helped pack his case and were eager to know what he would learn in our partner schools. He initially went to Malta and then to Italy and the children were anxious to keep contact and follow his progress through video conference. Whenever they spotted him in a partner school on the screen, there was great excitement.

Welcoming our “Visitors”

They were very receptive to the idea of welcoming characters from our partner schools. We spent some of the time with the younger classes making books about our school day and living in our local area. For them this was a fun way of learning about the routines that they themselves needed to know.

Family Groups

At our school the children work once a week in “family groups”. The family consists of 10 mixed age classes of children from 6 to 11. The meet once a week in the same group for the whole time they are at Wallands. This means that these children get to know

children of different ages and helps with playground problems and improves social skills. We worked on all the activities of the project in these groups and so made it a whole school project.


Pierino learns listening

First we hosted Pierino Pozzolo from Italy and taught him about English customs. The children in the Comenius club took turns to take him home and he was treated very well by them! We taught listening skills in family groups through Pierino. Every family group did listening activities and were specifically taught listening skills starting with the importance of eye

contact, not interrupting and thinking and talking about the same thing as your partner. We played many games with Pieriono to show him the importance of this. We moved on to the skills of empathising, asking encouraging questions and paraphrasing what your partner has said. With speech therapists and educationalists worrying more and more about the lack of speaking and listening skills of children as they enter school, this kind of work is the foundation to all learning as well as good behaviour.

Rights Respecting Schools and Fairtrade

When we welcomed Pippa Tikka from Malta, we were ready to move on to a more global issue. We decided to follow the UNICEF programme about becoming a Rights Respecting School or a school that teaches children about their rights and responsibilities. Part of their responsibility is to learn how to be a global citizen. We felt this fitted perfectly to what we were trying to achieve in the Comenius project too and decided to teach the children, through Pippa Tikka’s involvement, about Fair Trade. We focused initially on the concept of fairness and what they thought was fair and unfair. We then used a series of games, role plays and simulations from organisations such as Oxfam, UNICEF and Christian Aid. These were designed to educate the children about global trading and some of the inequalities there are between countries. The children were really receptive to this work. They produced posters campaigning for fair trade produce to be stocked in local shops became aware of their part as consumers. The travelling characters brought a new purpose and relevance to the children because they were learning alongside and teaching the characters. They formed such a strong bond with Walter Wallands that they couldn’t wait to connect with them during video conferences and hear what he had to teach them about Good behaviour and the cultural heritage of our partners in Italy and Malta.


Chapter III – Didactical game

“Play is our brain’s favourite way of learning”Diane Ackermann (poet, essayist and naturalist)

The rainbow of good behaviour – Didactical game The didactical game “The Rainbow of Good Behaviour” is one of the final products carried out in the second year of our Comenius project “Good Behaviour – a rainbow that Colours our Life”.

It is known that children learn intuitively, by playing, and find it easier and better. The Comenius team from “Simion Bărnuțiu” School, Romania proposed as a final product a didactical game about good behaviour. This game can be used for teaching, enforcing and/or evaluating knowledge in this field as well as for finding out new information about the countries of the partner institutions. Creating this didactical game had as its goals: enriching and enforcing knowledge about good behaviour in different situations, improving communicative competence and promoting children’s creativity.

This didactical game has been created with contributions from all the project partners. The task of each partner was to devise questions for their chosen topic, questions about their own country as well as some for “good luck” and “bad luck” cards.

Country / Schools/Domains (topics) 1. Ireland ‐ Ovens National School, Ovens, Co. Cork ‐ Internet/online safety 2. Italy ‐ Istituto Comprensivo, Lonate Pozzolo ‐ Respect for nature 3. Malta ‐ St Joseph Junior School Sliema ‐ Table manners 4. Portugal ‐ Externato Santa Catarina, Cruz Quebrada ‐ Behaviour at school 5. Slovenia ‐ Osnovna šola, Idrija ‐ Behaviour at cultural events 6. Slovenia ‐ Vrtec Idrija ‐ Mix questions 7. Turkey ‐ Naside Halil Gelendost Primary School, Isparta ‐ Traffic behaviour 8. UK ‐ Yarnfield Primary School, Birmingham ‐ Good Behaviour when playing sports 9. UK ‐ Wallands CP School Lewes – Sussex ‐ Good Listening 10. Romania ‐ Şcoala “Simion Barnutiu”, Cluj Napoca ‐ Greetings

The game can be played by 4‐8 players or in teams, using a game board, cards with questions about behaviour in different situations (100 pieces), star cards containing questions about each country (40 pieces), “good luck” cards and “bad luck” cards (10 pieces), “Funny task” cards (4 pieces), puzzle pieces as reward. The players throw the dice in turn and complete the tasks, depending on the position of their pawn on the board. The winner of the game is the one who succeeds in completing the puzzle first.


Working on this game was an exciting activity for all. The Romanian children proved to be highly creative; they came up with ingenious ideas, involving themselves with great pleasure in all the (suggested) activities.

The game has been used during some classes in Romania and it has been noticed that the children master the basic code of good behaviour and that they are open to finding out new information about similarities and differences between the cultures of the partner countries. The competition stirred their curiosity and motivated them to improve their knowledge about good behaviour in the areas suggested by the game.

We are sure that the children of the partner institutions would love to learn about good behaviour using this didactical game, too.

We invite you to play it and see how well you behave!


Chapter III – Songs DVD

"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."

Plato

Songs DVD One of the goals of the project was to promote understanding and respect amongst different cultures. The arts have a unique potential to support intercultural dialogue. This is particularly so with music which is a unique form of human expression. As the ultimate form of non‐verbal expression, it can create a basis for intercultural dialogue and common understanding without even using translation. “Children sing” is one of the activities, to encourage the development of a sense of belonging to the local, national and European community by establishing cross‐cultural relationships through music. Music is a valuable activity that contributes immensely to the development of a child. It can sometimes be the best link between those who share the same values. The creative power of music can make music a communication tool. Therefore we made a DVD with songs from the partner schools. Objectives: ‐ Presenting of partners’ own cultural identity,

‐ Exploring the cultures of other countries, ‐ Exploring the languages of other countries,

‐ The chance to learn songs from other countries. Each partner school was to record 3 songs:

a traditional one,

one from children’s favourites

and the well known song which appears in different countries entitled as Mojster Jaka / Frère Jacques / Fra Martino/, etc.

The last one can serve as a teaching tool in various subjects. Children can learn (about) different languages and compare them while listening to song. Songs are recorded in the video, showing the cross‐cultural diversity and colourfulness of languages in which the children sing. The product can be used after the project is finished. Using imagery as a learning device depends on the teacher's ingenuity and ability to prize and how to recognize the richness of different cultures. Teachers may also use the DVD with songs to identify the countries, languages, as puzzles.

Life is a song, let's sing it together. Let's take our hearts and dip them in rhyme, hoping the song lasts for a long, long time.

Life is a song that goes on forever.

Love's old refrain can never go wrong. Let's sing together and make life a song.


Chapter III – Comic strips

Comic strips As agreed by the partners, the first year activities of our Comenius project analysed the cultural aspect of human behaviour through the approach of traditional stories, legends or proverbs while the second year was dedicated to creative writing or story illustration in order to put into practice what children have experienced in the first phase of the project. The idea of creating comic strips about Alien characters watching human behaviour is suggested by the application form: “Two friendly non‐aliens come to Earth, behave in a strange way or observe human behaviour and manners in different situations … and ask questions. Children are supposed to continue the plot by solving problems or explaining. Teachers or students give ideas about situations… and realise the stories in different ways (dramatise, write and illustrate, make comics, videos, etc.)” (Application form p. 51). For the first grade students of Secondary school (age 11‐12) we chose the comic strip form of narrative because at this age children can master both written language and quite complex illustration; in addition drawing and colouring is definitely one of the most favoured activity of students, without exception.


The activity consists in creating “Alien stories” to be illustrated in groups or individually and its objective is to promote awareness by describing behaviour from an “outsider’s” point of view. The partners who participated in this task are Italy, Ireland, Malta, Romania, Slovenia OS. Each partner school has created its own collection of comic strips (1 album per class – 6 episodes each ‐ Any drawing or colouring technique of children’s choice) and has provided one or more comic strip stories in original language and English. As a final product the stories have been assembled in a joint album accompanied by a resource book and a CD with instructions, lesson plan, comic strips album both in coloured and blank version and suggestions for the follow up action. The final product has been edited by “Istituto Comprensivo, Lonate Pozzolo (Varese), Italy”.

.

Beware of the Aliens … They are watching us !

CCoommiicc ssttrriippss aallbbuumm aanndd rreessoouurrccee bbooookk


COMIC STRIPS Instructions and Lesson plan

Objective: To promote awareness of behaviour by describing behaviour from an

“outsider’s” point of view.

Activity: Create “Alien stories” to be illustrated in groups or individually

Age: 11‐12 (Activity can be adapted to any age)

School product: Collection of comic strips (1 album per class – 6 episodes each)

Materials: Drawing pad, pastel crayons, watercolours, collage papers, camera and pictures, computer graphics… (Any technique of children’s choice)

Joint product

Album with joint collection of comic strips + CD with description of activity and worksheet samples ‐ Each partner was asked to select and provide six illustrated pages + six story pages with story sequences in original language and English.

Lesson plan

Step 1 ‐ Brainstorming. Class activity. One hour.

Discuss with students what is good‐bad behaviour. Ask students to identify problem areas and draw a list of situations where improvement is required (at school/home, at the canteen, at the gym, at the park, with disadvantaged students, bullying …)

Step 2 ‐ Defining characters and template. Class activity. One hour

The children are asked to create a cartoon strip story. The story must have an ALIEN character witnessing human behaviour. Ask children to talk about their own experience of Alien stories (Films, books, cartoons…).

Ask students to imagine an Alien eye watching them while doing different activities at school/home…

Ask them to imagine how the Alien may feel when observing human behaviour and how he/she may react. (The Alien eye should help children by stimulating questions, motivating them, creating awareness of improper behaviour as well as proposing suitable emotional responses).


Ask children to draw their own Alien character (Front, back, side) and give him/her a name. Any technique. One /Two hours, depending on the selected technique. Children can start at school and finish their project at home. (Individual activity)

Step 3 ‐ Children show their Alien to the class and explain its characteristics and name. The class chooses the Alien who will be the character of the class story. (An exhibition of all Alien drawings can be displayed on the Comenius Corner. Some Aliens can appear on the Blog or website)

Step 4 ‐ Ask children to imagine and write the Alien story.

To begin with, you may give some options about the role of the Alien in the story:

1‐ A “teen age” Alien falls on earth and gets lost. Some children find him/her and try to integrate him/her by teaching him/her how to behave in different situations.

2‐ An Alien on a mission on earth has to study human habits and write a report for his master…

Discuss ideas together and then ask children to write their own short story keeping to the chosen situations of problem behaviours and the Alien role. You may set the word number, if you like. (Children may finish the story at home).

Step 5 ‐ Children read their stories. Schoolmates are asked to express their opinion. Select the best ideas from all stories and create a CLASS STORY. Find together a suitable Title.

Step 6 ‐ Split up the class into small groups (3 or 4 children each)

Divide the story into episodes (if possible as many as the groups) Each group will illustrate the assigned episode. They will also write dialogues

and the corresponding story sequences. They will translate captions and text sequences into English with the help of the teacher.

Step 7 ‐ Scan and print illustrated stories + matching story sequences. Assemble

pages to create a class album.


Follow up action Scan and print non coloured illustrated stories with empty balloons and captions. Supply worksheet with captions and cues. The empty version of illustrated stories + captions and cues can be a good way of sharing other class groups or partners’ work: Here is an example from Italian comic strip “Najla falls on earth”, page 1: The blank version of the comic strip can be useful in a variety of class activities, such as colouring, decorating, reading or listening comprehension, creative writing, narrating:

1 – Give the illustrated page without captions and cues. Ask children to guess the story.

In pairs/small groups they create captions and cues. Colour the panels. Compare the new version with the original one.

2 – (For younger children). Copy one page per children. Cut the panels, hand them

out in mixed up order. Read the story and ask children to find the right order.

3 – Give the captions in mixed order and ask children to stick/write them under the right panel.

4 – Dictation/spot dictation of captions and dialogue.

5 – Give the cues in mixed up order. Children copy/stick cues into the right balloon.

6 – Give the story page with captions. Children create the dialogue and write the cues.

Page 1

1. Nejla lives on the Flat Planet 2. She leans out too much and

falls down

3. She stops on the wing of a plane

4. She lands at Malpensa airport

5. She meets Anna and Marco

6. They invite her to stay with them

Nejla falls on

.

Good BehaviourGood BehaviourGood BehaviourGood Behaviour A rainbow that colours our lifeA rainbow that colours our lifeA rainbow that colours our lifeA rainbow that colours our life

Lifelong Learning Programme Comenius

School Partnership 2008 - 2010

This project has been funded with support from the European

Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors,

and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may

be made of the information contained therein.

Chapter 04

Activities specific to each partner institution

and impact of the project inside each school

community

pages 58 - 97


Chapter IV – Specific activities

Ireland – Ovens National School

Ovens National School is a 320- pupil mixed primary school in Southern Ireland. This

Is the second Comenius project for the school. Participation has enabled the whole

school community to work together in a spirit of learning and innovation while

enhancing the teaching and learning experience of all involved in this transnational

collaborative work.

Year 1 Language free zone

One of the areas identified as problematic by parents, children and school staff was

the use of bad language. The school undertook a campaign to

try to improve the situation. Art lessons, stories, poetry and

dramatic situations were created with the aim of reducing the

incidence of bad language both at home and at school

For the months of April and May, the entire

school community focused on ensuring that

bad language was not used. Many deterrents were put in place

such as a box for infringements and loss of some privilege. At

home, parents were reminded by children of the

inappropriateness of bad language and in the yard every effort was made to ensure

that no bad language was used.

Many stories and poems were written and people became aware

of the need to discourage others from using language which many

find offensive.

Caring for the environment Growing fruit and vegetables and the creation of a school garden

was part of a plan to promote awareness about and learn how to take care of the

environment.Plants such as potatoes, carrots, cabbage, beetroot

and strawberries were sown and harvested. This was a worthwhile

successful project which taught the whole school community about

the importance of caring for the environment.

Children learned how to feed and water plants, how to weed and

protect plants and they were encouraged to learn more about

recycling, composting and looking after the wormery.

The correct disposal of all sorts of litter was another aspect of this

work and paper, food, and all materials were sorted and recycled

according to the appropriate procedures.

Research and presentations about the local area

Students prepared presentations about Ovens, Cork, Ireland and sporting clubs in the

locality. Each class took a partner country and over a period of four months learned all

about the physical features, cultural heritage, and other facts about the country. Some

classes communicated with partner countries. They then presented their research findings

in either a poster format or as a PowerPoint or Photo story presentation. These

presentations were put together as a resource for other pupils and shared with partners.


The entire school selected specific behavioural areas to dramatise or to present a

musical compilation or choral verse recital. Songs relating to behaviour were

combined, children arranged musical accompaniment and presented to the

remainder of the school.

These presentations were fun for the children and were enjoyed by audiences in a

number of settings. Selected by the children themselves, each class group had a

different emphasis, some related to bullying, others to bad behaviour, good

manners at table and in school, positive behaviour. Songs included rap, rock, pop

and dance and movement were included. The following

songs were part of the routines e.g. Don’t worry, be

happy, Try a little kindness, You’ve got a friend.

Year 2 - Fundraising for poorer families

Carols and Krispies

Children in the two sixth classes did a day-long Carol Service for the whole school.

They played all the usual Christmas carols and Seasonal songs. Each child

contributed one euro to the fundraising team in return for a Krispie bun baked by

the pupils. A sum of €700 was gathered and presented by the children to the local

helping agency, the St. Vincent de Paul Society. This event reminded children to

think about others at this time of the year. A no uniform day was held in the school

for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. The children of the school raised a whopping

amount of €5,000 by participating in a Readathon for people who suffer from

Multiple Sclerosis.

Cartoon stories based on the Simpsons

Senior Infant classes took the Simpsons cartoon television series as a starting point

for behaviour modification. Aspects of incidents and behaviour, comments and

events which featured in the programmes were used to discuss the rights and

wrongs of the behaviour which occurs in the scenes. Children love the Simpsons and

are really keen on the characters so this was a good choice and got plenty of input

and reaction. Lessons were built around the programme.

PowerPoint Presentations and Poetry about Good Behaviour To consolidate all that was learned about good behaviour; the older children

prepared some presentations on a wide range of situations and outlined a range of

appropriate behaviours for each. The pupils were encouraged to make suggestions

for their peers and for younger children. These presentations are a valuable

resource for the whole school and coming from the perspective of young people are

more meaningful to them. The poetry gives a good insight into how children feel

about a wide variety of behaviour issues and many of the poems have been chosen

for a European publication, Eurochild and so will have a broad audience of young

people across many countries.

Positive Behaviour Whole school strategies Staff in Ovens discussed strategies for promoting positive behaviour throughout the

school. Senior Infants and their teacher adopted an in-class reward strategy using


yellow cards, red cards and green cards in the classroom. The teacher and student

teacher found that group work and collaborative work improved a lot.

Throughout the school, staff decided to reward children for good behaviour when

caught being good by any adult in the school. Notes of praise were sent for

behaviour such as stepping back, opening a door, being nice to a younger pupil,

helping other children and basically any behaviour which could at a teacher’s

discretion be construed as well-mannered and exceptional. This has raised an

awareness of the importance of good conduct in the yard, at the school gate and in

the school hall and corridors.

The impact of video conferencing on the school in Ovens Videoconferencing has been one of the most exciting aspects of the project work. It

has brought partner schools and their children to life and has put a face on each

country. It was essential to do some research prior to each conference and this was

done with enthusiasm and a spirit of inquiry as children looked forward to having an

immediate audience for their findings. Educationally then this form of

communication has a huge motivational value.

Children’s presentation skills have been enhanced by videoconferencing. Scripts had

to be prepared in advance and a plan for each meeting was devised by the children

in the class. Children developed an awareness of sound and lighting requirements

for working on camera and discovered that clarity of speech

and voice projection are essential elements of good

communication.

The Irish children prepared songs, music, dance, poetry,

choral verse and information about our cultural heritage

and school system. They were delighted to share their art

work displays with children throughout the partnership. Irish children in turn were

enthralled by stories from Birmingham students, Italian songs and music and

ongoing interactive presentations from Malta, Lewes and Slovenia.

Videoconferences enable relationships to be formed and are an ideal platform for

learning about each other. Among the observations of the Irish children was the

multicultural nature of neighbouring schools, how tall some children are and the

lack of uniforms in many schools.Total engagement with the process is guaranteed

with a videoconference and the learning outcomes may be unexpected.

The impact of teacher mobilities

Comenius project mobility has been a fantastic opportunity for teachers to learn

from colleagues in other cultures and school systems. Their professional

development is enhanced and there are many examples of staff returning to their

own schools with new ideas which have been found on a Comenius visit. Teacher

mobility has a huge impact on the classroom environment as it enables the teacher

to share what has been learned with the class.

The school community benefits from the mobility as structures, systems and

practices are examined, questioned and explained and the best aspects may be put

in place or at least shared with the home school. In the case of our good behaviour

project, teachers saw at first hand, the impact of strategies for improving behaviour,

inclusion, motivational practices and the pros and cons of each. Each visit has

reminded us that all countries have their own unique cultural heritage and that it is


important for us to preserve what we have by ensuring that our children are aware

of it. Teacher mobility encourages the development of this awareness.

Teachers were selected for mobility based on their interest and input into the

project. This made for very worthwhile involvement and good quality work resulted.

Teachers were invigorated

as a result of the mobility and were challenged to

reflect on their own practice through the experience of other systems. On return,

ideas were shared with the whole staff and discussions were based on what was

seen. Many practical strategies and ideas have been initiated in the school as a

result. It was a most worthwhile learning opportunity and has had positive spin off

for the whole school community. Pupil mobility for the children in our schools was

not allowed as they are aged 12 and under.

Parental involvement Step one of the project “Good behaviour a rainbow that colours our life” required

the involvement of parents in assessing the situation with respect to behaviour.

Parents were asked to reflect on their own attitude towards behaviour and how

they thought the school should contribute to the promotion of good behaviour. A

comprehensive questionnaire was presented and answering it required a

considerable amount of time and effort. So the project began with total inclusion of

parents and their opinions. The success of the project was dependant on the

enthusiasm and positive contribution of the parents. It was recognised from the

beginning that parents are the primary influence on children’s behaviour. Across the

partner schools, parents responded with comprehensive and informative opinions.

The collation of all the information gave the project a solid base and set the

foundation for a worthwhile project.

Each of the activities of the project involved the parents. Younger children shared

experiences with their parents. Activities involving the characters included home

and holiday visitations and the visiting character was included in many fun and daily

routines.

Parent representatives were involved in the whole school review and planning of a

code of behaviour. This is a very important part of the required process for the

creation and review of a whole school policy on behaviour and parents shared with

the whole staff a day of discussion of the many aspects of this. Priorities and

concerns were identified and it is hoped that our project will help to shape some

decisions.

Parents were involved in organising the meetings which were held in the host

countries. Ireland hosted the meeting in June 2009 and parents of Ovens prepared

meals and helped with the provision of hospitality for the visiting teachers. Parents

participated in social events during the visit as well as providing assistance with

aspects of the work. Their co-operation and encouragement of children was of

central importance. Other events included newsletters with up to date news of the


project specifically designed for the parents of the children. Notes relating to project

progress were distributed and at all stages of the two years, parental support was

forthcoming and very welcome. We are looking forward now to sharing the many

exciting products and results of our work.

Arranging a Meeting- the impact on the school

Ireland hosted a meeting in June 2009. This event

galvanised the whole school community into action.

Parents, teachers, children and the wider community

worked together to make this event the huge success

that it was. The Irish Minister for Education was

invited to attend and he agreed to so do. His visit to

the school involved a number of press briefings and a

number of local and national media publications covered the event with pictures

and newspaper articles. Involvement in the Comenius project and its launch was a

great opportunity for the school Management and community to communicate and

show at first hand the dynamic and progressive nature of Ovens N.S. and also to

raise concerns about the growing need for increased permanent classroom

accommodation in the future. The Minister was pleased to experience at first hand

the great work that was being done in the project and commended the project team

for their enthusiasm and foresight.

The Parents Association worked hard to fundraise, publicise and provide for the

meeting. They organised a very impressive notice for the front of the school which

still remains and proclaims the Comenius

partnership.

Social events were organised and some

music, dance and sport representing Irish culture

and the locality were on display.

Personnel at the local Golf Club worked hard to

provided accommodation and meals at a very

reasonable cost to participants. Visiting teachers got a

taste of Irish hospitality.

The best weather of the Summer greeted the visitors on

arrival and the good weather ensured that our guests

sampled the best of all that is good about Ireland

through visits to the West Cork coastline and some local

heritage sites.

Staff, parents, children and the whole community took great pride in presenting the

school and its environs to the visiting delegation of teachers. The children remember

the visit with fondness and still speak about the people they met. It had a unifying

effect on the whole school and was a powerful means of promoting a sense of self

and the school as a unit.



Italy – Istituto Comprensivo “Carlo Carminati”

The accomplishment of the project objectives in our institution has been pursued through the realisation both of common and specific activities by means of which we have managed to achieve the common goals while preserving our specific identity.

Year 1 ‐ “2009: year of innovation and creativity”

From November 2008 to March 2009 we successfully experienced a vertical cooperative teaching project that involved a group of 13 year old students fostering a class of 5 year old children. Students planned didactic activities covering 4 lessons, 2 hours per lesson, developing the theme of the basic values of European citizenship with special interest in creativity, diversity and inclusion.

Lesson 1: Students illustrated the geographic dimension of the EU by means of large posters they created. Children were asked to draw and place themselves into the outline of their own town/country/continent. Children painted together a big European flag.

Lesson 2: Children were asked to imagine the world/Europe they would like to live in. They drew and painted the Europe they imagined, filling in a blank space.

Lesson 3: Students told a story about integrating and including people, with a missing ending, eg (“X” comes from a foreign country, doesn’t know the language, the habits etc., no children want to play with him, except for “y”… “how do you think the story ends?”). Children didn’t know how to go on because they didn’t see the point: they don’t have prejudices towards foreign children. The teachers explained that intolerance is driven by society and “education”. This was an exciting discovery for everyone. Lesson 4: Children “make a wish upon a star”. Students asked children to make a wish about their future life: “When I grow up I want to be… /I want… “and helped them draw and write their wish upon a yellow paper star. Children’s drawings and stars were tied to a big bunch of blue balloons. The balloons were finally launched in the sky while children followed their wishes flying high.


The experience has been surprisingly successful in terms of emotional involvement, motivation, responsibility and learning, especially for those students who usually show intolerance towards school and display challenging behaviour. In their approach to younger children, teenagers who can be challenging showed unexpected care and consideration towards the younger children.

The experience was recorded and edited in the year 1 Comenius Spot.

Year 2 ‐ Citizenship Education Project: “The apprentice Citizen” The Year 1 experience was repeated in an alternative version involving a larger number of students. Four classes from the Secondary school (100 students, 12 years old) and four classes from Primary (100 children, age 7‐9) worked together in small groups of mixed ages and abilities to analyse the articles of Italian Constitution that are concerned with equality, freedom, peace, justice, respect, responsibility, tolerance, legality and focus on the basic values of democratic society and citizenship.

The results confirm the high potential of cooperative learning in terms of motivation and empathy.

“2010: year for combating poverty and social exclusion” With older students we have considered behaviour in terms of social responsibility and commitment. This year a group of 13 years old students took part in a couple of European contests about the theme of poverty and social exclusion. In order to raise money for a local aid agency, students organised

an “Evening of charity” consisting of a show with songs, poems and quotations about social disadvantage. They scheduled and arranged all the steps of the final event, going through auditions, selecting the best performances, script writing, soundtrack adjustment, making a PPT to be used as a background, advertising of the show as well as extensive rehearsing.


In addition, students have analysed the theme of poverty in their local context by means of interviews with the Lord Mayor and the Social Policy Councillor of our town and to the representatives of the local aid agencies.

All the activities were edited in a DVD including both a “Video News” programme and the recording of the “Evening of Charity” show. This project has been extremely successful in terms of emotional involvement and motivation especially for students who generally don’t show any interest in the conventional class activities. To perform on stage, they accepted common rules, kept to deadlines and rehearsed as much as anyone else. The applause of their peers and the audience has finally supplied them with positive feedback for their abilities and raised their self esteem.

In this sense the experience proved to be a good opportunity to promote the inclusion of those who, inside the school system, are at risk of social exclusion often because of their socio‐economic disadvantages.

“Movies and food” project A group of 13 year old students ran an activity based on the analysis and review of film scenes. Students have basically analysed table manners and examined their connection with social condition and influences. The activity has been divided in two sections, one per year.

The final product consists of 2 CDs including the selected film scenes and the matching worksheets (in Italian, English and French).

Video conferencing

Video conferencing has been one of the most motivating project activities. We have set a series of video contacts involving a few classes of our Secondary school. The first attempts occurred at Christmas time and were basically centred on sharing Christmas carols and traditions. We had video conferences with Sussex, Ireland, Malta, and Slovenia OS and from the beginning children were motivated by them and reacted with excitement and curiosity. After initial approaches, we decided to make best use of the time of the conference. We planned more structured communication with questions sent in advance so that the students could practice the answers before the video call. This procedure helped non native English speakers feel more confident and less shy on screen.

We must add that the activity has been challenging from the beginning. As the result, the planned work has been often affected by difficulties arising from bad connections or inadequate equipment.


Arranging the meeting Our school hosted the third Comenius meeting from 31 March to 5 April 2009. We hosted 24 adults (Head Teachers, Deputy Head and Teachers) and 14 students from Slovenia and Romania. The organization was challenging but, according to the partners’ response, really successful. Students are the ones who most profited from the meeting opportunities.

Their comments were always enthusiastic and they all appreciated the contact with different cultures. They realized the importance of an adequate linguistic competence for effective communication and in many cases they succeeded in overcoming cultural prejudices establishing good personal relationships. Teachers, families and local institutions got spontaneously involved in the organization of the meeting truly demonstrating the traditional hospitality of our country. The whole project profited from the meeting in terms of dissemination of objectives, activities and products in the local context.

Mobilities

We have easily achieved the 24 mobilities we had planned in the application form. We moved 14 students and 20 teachers as a whole.

Eligible teachers and students were selected on the basis of their personal involvement in the project and of the effectiveness of their action.

To select students we asked them to tick the following priorities:

Having given hospitality to a partner student during the meeting in Italy

Having kept regularly in touch with the partner

Being a member of the Comenius team

Taking part significantly in the project activities

Being able to use English language to express one’s one needs. In case of an excess of candidates we devised a test about partner countries. The procedure proved to be valuable as there was no controversy about the selection of candidates.



Malta – St Joseph Junior School

Impact on our school

Video conferences

Taking part in a number of video conferences has proved to be very positive for everyone at St Joseph Junior School. Before joining in this project, we had no idea what a video conference was. During the first meeting which had taken place in Isparta, Turkey, we heard the opinions of various participants of other schools from different countries about the positive aspects when holding such conferences.

As a consequence, a number of teachers at our school started to take a keener interest and wanted to learn more about it. Over the months this proved to be very successful and it left a very positive impact on everyone at our school, pupils and teachers alike.

Initially children were told that they were participating in this project with a number of other children from all over Europe. But what does this mean to a 5 year old? Not much! However actually connecting with other children in other countries and seeing them on the big screen and being able to talk to them, ask questions, share opinions, dance or sing for them...... is truly an experience that most children and teachers will appreciate and remember.

In fact, by the end of our two years our school was very satisfied because we had successfully managed to have a number of video conferences with Italy, Slovenia, Ireland, UK and Romania.


Comenius Day – A Day of Many Colours

Towards the end of our first year in the project, St Joseph School held an Open Day for parents called Comenius Day – A day of many colours. This has proved to be a very positive event and has left a good impact on the whole school. For this event, the school opened its doors to all the parents.

Parents were invited to view all the work that their children had been working on in relation to the project. Besides the fact that the children enjoyed doing various activities such as art work, research, creative writing in relation to good behaviour, parents became more aware of what this project is all about.

Hosting a meeting in Malta/ Pjazza Comenius

This event was a very special one for us because it was our first time that our school was in a Comenius Project and so the first time for us to host a meeting of this type. It meant quite a lot of work not only for each and every one inside our school but also for parents who gave a lot of their contribution. We wanted it to be a memorable experience especially for our foreign guests. Each grade, right from our youngest Pre‐ Graders to our eldest Grade 6s, was linked to a participating country. This helped our pupils to learn more about the cultures, folklore, art and music of other countries. We worked as a team to put up a concert, Pjazza Comenius, were we gave life to all the different characters coming from all nine educational institutions. These travelling characters promoted various good manners that had been learned throughout the two years. This event had a positive impact on our pupils because they passed the message of what good behaviour is through drama, song and dance.

Teachers’ Meeting

Meetings left a great impact on the various teachers that have attended them. During such meetings, teachers from different countries voiced our different ideas and suggestions about what they understand by good behaviour. These meetings have proved to be very fruitful because they gave teachers the opportunity to share their own experience and learn from other teachers coming from different countries and therefore different cultures. As a consequence teachers have benefited a lot by attending such meetings.



Portugal ‐ Externato Santa Catarina

The context of our private institution – Externato Santa Catarina, Portugal – is the common context of an educational institution for children of the middle‐class group in Portuguese society, with some traces of mono parental families, children of different marriages living in the same home… children staying almost ten hours at school as a result of their parent’s jobs. We also have some students with special needs.

When we joined this Project we decided that by establishing a direct link between what we call “good behaviour” and the sensibility in each one of our students of each country, we would develop artistic, social and ethical values, a sense of responsibility and respect, and to enhance tolerance in accordance with the common European values.

This Project “Good Behaviour – a rainbow that colours our life” was integrated in the Educational Project of our institution and it was developed across all the areas of knowledge, active learning and socialisation, inside the national curriculum of the Kindergarten and the first four years of the Primary School.

But what is Behaviour? According to a strict definition, “it is a goal to achieve the desired results for resolution of symbolized stimuli perceived in the environment, in order to keep emotional equilibrium” and managing it positively can go a long way towards reducing the stress levels of staff and pupils alike, enabling a safe learning environment.

The ethos of Externato Santa Catarina is that we follow Dewey’s idea that “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself”, which gives the right approach to

the behaviour values of respect, responsibility, cooperation, consideration, fairness and honesty;

essential positive strategies that encourage self‐guidance and are based on the value and belief that children can learn

impulse control to help them develop self‐discipline, responsibility, positive capabilities and attitudes;

the process of guiding children’s behaviour as an ongoing process; it is a long‐term goal that parents, professionals of education, general staff and


other persons should have for children;

the concern that children’s behaviour is influenced by their overall development, their environment, and the adults who care for them.

Developing this Project was an experience of participation in terms of interpersonal and intrapersonal relations, engagement to succeed as a learner and to have confidence to apply knowledge, having access to a variety of situations where the child could experience limits and rules for the welfare of the group and of him/herself.

The use of ICT was absolutely necessary in the development of the Project, considering three different perspectives:

1. The communication between schools, between the school community and between staff;

2. The research of information that was used in different activities; 3. The realisation and dissemination of final products.

Besides some simple activities (sending e‐mails, using internet, taking digital photos, getting images, elaborating texts, recording images ‐ sounds, editing images ‐ texts‐ sounds....) one basic concern of the teachers in this Project was to develop the activity of Video conferencing, in order that we could start a closer relation in smaller groups, some of them without a common language of communication.

As a matter of fact, groups of younger children (Kindergarten and lower primary) could not use English as a common instrument of communication, which could give different approaches by the use of body language (smiling, waving, looking into each other…), listening different languages and its sounds, songs and even amazing experiences such as showing snow to groups that are not used to see it, drawings or even toys, alongside presentations by pupils translated by each teacher.

It was impossible for our students to experience mobility to other countries and contact with different realities and people, due to their age. It was also impossible to promote teacher’s mobility to all our group of teachers, not only because of the fact that we are a small group but also because it is not easy to manage the daily life of our school.

However, for the teachers who had the chance to participate in other meetings abroad it was a unique experience: contacting with other lifestyles, educational systems, and different ways of organising groups of children, interpersonal relations, celebrations and successes, experiencing cultures and above all the richness of working as a varied group.


For schools with younger children there was not the real possibility to participate in some activities with older students, which for us was a negative note during the development of this Project. It would be very important to work in a real mixed age group – precious goal to a Behaviour Project nowadays ‐ for instance using the work of the oldest to motivate the youngest, at least in one or two common activities. In our institution this was

something that we tried hard to do, in order that the final products or simple activities had the contribution of all.

Among all the specific activities that we developed in our institution we also tried to involve the school community as a whole and particularly to involve parents. We believe that teachers and parents need to work together to ensure good behaviour.

Hence the project valued the parents’ participation initially using the results of the questionnaires and also with parental opinions and suggestions. The participation of our parents was essential to the success of all the Exhibitions presented inside our school and also as they enriched their children’s learning achievements. We tried to determine the effectiveness of current activities and planning according to the outcomes.

The preparation of a meeting was important as it needed to reflect the needs of the project at that time.

After the resignation of the general coordinator and the negative feeling inside the group, the Comenius team of Externato Santa Catarina decided to organize a strong Study Meeting, with an effective balance of work, study and cultural visits, contact with the several groups/classes inside school and a specific presentation with children about Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

The school community worked very hard in the organization of the Study Meeting in order that it would be valuable in gaining collective understanding, agreement and the necessary consensus to establish a proper basis for planning and implementing the project.

Our main goals were to establish a positive feeling inside the group in order that common and enthusiastic effort would bring confidence and creativity into the realisation of final works on the last phase of the Project’s development and also to discover, inside the group, potential resources (physical and human) to close the recent gap.


The evaluation of this Study Meeting, done by the participant partners and also by the teachers/Headmistress/Administration Board of Externato Santa Catarina, focussed on the quality of the program proposed and the results achieved in the short period of time (15th – 20th February 2010).

In chapter two of this E‐Book we have already highlighted some specific activities done during these two years of Project. We will now present a short résumé:

Meetings Teachers / Parents / Students Study Meeting for Teachers – February 2010

Sept 2008 – Sept 2009 Feb 2010

Questionnaires Parents / teachers / grandparents / children Sept 2010

Rules of Group / Class List of Rules Sept 2009 – Sept 2010

Thematic Days Water Day Saint Martin Day Food’s Day Singing Janeiras (5 years)

Oct 2009 Nov 2009 Oct 2009 Jan 2010

Traditional Stories “Stone Soup” “Mysterious eggs”

Nov 2008 Nov 2008

Thematic Exhibitions Comenius Christmas in solidarity Christmas Traditions (countries of the Project) Countries of the Project Christmas traditions in Portugal

Oct 2008 Dec 2009 Nov/Dec 2008 May 2009 Nov/Dec 2009

Specific works A question of values… (5 years) Table Manners (3

rd grade)

Logo of the Project (3rd grade)

School Eco‐Codes (4 years and 3rd grade)

Building a tower (2 years) Snow Man (3 up 5 years) Community school service (4

th grade)

Dec 2008 Feb 2009 Apr 2009 Apr 2009 Oct 2009 Dec 2009 Jan 2010

Parties Christmas Event Carnival‐ Characters and stories Fair of the Countries of the Project Carnival – Behaviours in Portuguese Culture

Dec 2008 Feb 2009 May 2009 Feb 2010

Blogs and webiste http://behaviourproject.110mb.com/ ‐ site http://behaviour‐project.blogspot.com/ ‐ blog in POR http://behaviour2‐project.blogspot.com/‐ blog in ENG

Jan 2009 Feb 2009 Feb 2009

Partnership Be Hope – school / parents Feb 2010



Romania - Şcoala Simion Bărnutiu

The impact of Comenius project “Good Behaviour, a Rainbow that

Colours our Life” in “Simion Barnutiu” School

Our school have experience in working on projects. We are at our third experience

in Comenius projects. All projects started from a real problem of our school. It is one

of the goals of our school, establish in our school development plan, to promote

international projects. Our teachers, students and parents got involved in the

project with enthusiasm and we worked together during the common activities

established in the application form, but also in other specific activities run in our

school or activities with different partners, having the same topic – good behaviour.

1. Good manners

• “10 minutes of politeness”- activities at primary school children reinforcing

basic rules of politeness situational activities – 130 students (primary), 14

teachers and students aged 6-11 years;

• “Table manners around the world”-reinforcing our own table manners as

well as becoming aware of cultural diversity and promoting tolerance

(project work, miming) – all school 300 students, 24 teachers, students aged

6-14 years;

• “Intricate stories” – a play performed by students which was based on an

original script written by students in the 6th

form; it satirizes nowadays

attitudes and behaviours, using animals as characters – 25 students, 3

teachers, students aged 13-14 years;


• “Right or Wrong”-role play-students in 6th

and 7th

forms performed good VS

bad behaviour - 45 students, 3 teachers, students aged 13-14 years.

• “The past returns”- film- satirizing bad behaviours using characters from IL. Caragiale’s

works, the script written and the performance done by students in the 7th

form

students, 3 teachers, students aged 13-14 years.

• “The past returns”- film- satirizing bad behaviours using characters from IL.

Caragiale’s works, the script written and the performance done by students

in the 7th

form – 20 students, 3 teachers, students aged 13-14 years.

2. Interpersonal relations

• “The lesson with the largest number of students in the world”- activity

organized in partnership with “ World Vision” and “Save the Children”

foundations having as slogans “ Education for all” ,”Stop exclusion”(the

whole school) – all school 300 students, 24 teachers, students aged 6-14

years;

• “Each child matters” – activity carried on in partnership with students at

Political Science College in order to promote tolerance equality – 140

students (secondary), 4 university students, 14 teachers, students aged 10-

15 years;


3. Activities having as a slogan: “Our planet should remain green”

• collecting worn-out batteries – taking part in the contest promoted by

LIONS CLUB – all school’s 300 students, 24 teachers, students aged 6-14

years;

• posters, projects, displays on “Water day”, “Earth’s day” – 140 students

(secondary), 14 teachers, students aged 10-15 years;

• performing the play “Drops of life” by Esko-Pekka Tiitinen, Music and

translation in English Mika Vanhanen on the Earth Day – 20 students (7th

grade), 2 teachers, students aged 14 years;

• taking care of the school garden – 45 students, 3 teachers, students aged

13-14 years

4. Activities having as slogans “We have rights but also responsibilities”,

“Lets become responsible citizens”

• making up class rules/school rules –and getting responsibilities – all school

300 students, 24 teachers, students aged 6-14 years;

• taking part in the project “Connect yourself to community” promoted by

IMPACT Club and Youth Foundation, sponsored by NOKIA – 24 students, 4

teachers, students aged 10-14 years

• setting up the group of children mediators for preventing school bullying

within the activity “A World without Violence” – all school 300 students,

24 teachers, students age 6-14 years


5. Charity events

• “Santa Claus Elves” – to render children awareness of other people’s needs

(young or old) – presents, a show for those less fortunate than them – 24

students, 4 teachers, students aged 10-14 years

• “Christmas in light and joy “ – activity organized in partnership with

parents – children, teachers and parents made Christmas cards and

ornaments, carried out fundraising – 130 students (primary), 14 teachers,

70 de parents, students aged 6-11 years.

Taking part in the project gave us all the opportunity of sharing ideas and stirred our

creativity. Thus, we thought to propose new optional classes in the curricula

intuited “Good behaviour through stories”, “Great deeds for little children”, “Good

behavior, the key to harmony”, there were created new motivating teaching

instruments or new convenient teaching strategies that helped to promote good

behaviour and awareness of its importance, to increase children’s motivation and

bring to life what they have learnt.

Looking back at all the activities we worked on during this project, made us realise

the great positive impact they have had on us all, students, teachers and our whole

community.

First of all we can say that the goal of the project was attained: our students have

become more aware of the importance of good behaviour, which ultimately

determines the quality of our lives.

The large number of participants in the project (300 students, 14 teachers, 36

parents) strengthened the idea that the theme of our project was widely taken on

board.

The planned activities in our project and the final products that were produced had

an impact on our school in the following ways:

• They enabled our children to enrich their knowledge about good behaviour

in different situations;

• It stimulated their curiosity and motivated them to learn about other

cultures. They are now able to identify similarities and accept differences

and have become more tolerant;

• It has given them the possibility to develop social skills that are relevant for

their professional as well as for their personal life. For example, the pair

work or group work activities helped them “learn by doing”. They learnt

rules of communication and good listening, cooperation and they also

acquired the ability to make decisions, negotiate, express opinions with

arguments and the ability to make a presentation.

In all the activities the Romanian children were involved, they proved to be highly

creative, coming up with ingenious ideas and much enthusiasm.

Organizing the project meeting in Romania, gave us the possibility to present the

Romanian Educational System, the achievements of our school, the performances

of our students as well as the Romanian culture and traditions.

Teachers, students and parents in our school thought of a large variety of activities

on the project topic: workshops

Encounters of the Third Kind

performed by both the Romanian students and guest students. Hosting the guest

students in our student’s home offered them a direct contact to our customs,

traditions and specific food.

In order to make our children aware of the concepts of identity and diversity within

the European community and of the importance of a tolerant and open

attitude, we thought to encourage

the other partner institution as much as possible. Consequently, we involved a large

number of students (11 students) in motilities, making it possible for them, to have

direct contacts with children of their age. On these occasions they had the

opportunity to introduce themsel

Power Point presentation), to work together in workshops, they exchanged e

addresses, or used other means of communication, so that they could keep in touch

even after the project is over.

The students in our school took part in 2

from Sussex (UK) and Malta. Unfortunately, we could not have regular such

meetings because of the overloaded programme of our students.

Now we are on the point to establish contacts with

pen pal letters exchange.

Alongside the students, tea

project. They acquired new skills in the management and planning of aspects of

project.

They can now organise projec

to know other educational systems or new methods of teaching that are a

inspiration for innovation and professional development.

The success of the students and teachers has been beneficial to

Thus, during the project meeting, our teachers and students promoted the image of

Romania, Transylvania and Cluj, our town, but also the Romanian soul.

Good Behaviour – a rainbow that colour our life – 2008/2010


on the project topic: workshops - “The Rainbow of good behaviour” and “

e Third Kind”, presenting AElearning system, artistic moments



traditions and specific food.

er to make our children aware of the concepts of identity and diversity within

the European community and of the importance of a tolerant and open

attitude, we thought to encourage connections between our pupils and those from

itution as much as possible. Consequently, we involved a large



opportunity to introduce themselves (the Romanian and the Italian students made a

presentation), to work together in workshops, they exchanged e


even after the project is over.

in our school took part in 2 video conferences with the institution


meetings because of the overloaded programme of our students.

Now we are on the point to establish contacts with children from Birmingham by

teachers also had great benefits from taking part in this

project. They acquired new skills in the management and planning of aspects of

now organise project meetings or negotiate with partners. They have

to know other educational systems or new methods of teaching that are a

inspiration for innovation and professional development.

The success of the students and teachers has been beneficial to our community


Romania, Transylvania and Cluj, our town, but also the Romanian soul.

2008/2010 77


od behaviour” and “Close

”, presenting AElearning system, artistic moments



er to make our children aware of the concepts of identity and diversity within

the European community and of the importance of a tolerant and open-minded

and those from

itution as much as possible. Consequently, we involved a large



ves (the Romanian and the Italian students made a

presentation), to work together in workshops, they exchanged e-mail


with the institution


children from Birmingham by

taking part in this

project. They acquired new skills in the management and planning of aspects of the

or negotiate with partners. They have come

to know other educational systems or new methods of teaching that are a source of

our community, too.



All our efforts to promote European collaboration and civic activities helped our

school to be recognized at the national level as follows:

• In 2009 our school won the European School Certificate, in the European

School National Contest, organized by our Ministry of Education and our

National Agency – ANPCDEFP, for promoting activities of European

cooperation and projects.

• In 2010 our school won a National Mention in the national contest “Made

for Europe”, for our common final product, “The rainbow of good behaviour”

– didactical game, contest organized by the Ministry of Education and our

National Agency – ANPCDEFP, to promote the final products of the Comenius

project.

All the specific activities run in the school, along the common activities, were meant

to enlarge the number of the activities and diversify the ways to improve good

behaviour of our students, the good of our project.

During the project meeting we all had the opportunity to interchange ideas and

enrich our experience. We will surely, use some ideas got during the project,

adapting them to the needs of our school and students.

Chapter IV

Slovenia

The most important task of our schoeducational process whilst taking into consideration the needs of the students. school builds on good interpersonal relations, trust and respect.

Our school vision school is:

Friendship - the way to knowledge

This vision is a way to put into practice the values of all participants in the education process - the parents, teachers, students are: knowledge, creativity, cooperation, and friendship. Our goal is, while taking into account all these values, to make learning activelearn, to reduce student conflict

Good behaviour at meals

Good behaviour and the interpersonal relationships connected with it encompass a number of areas which can be improved by working with the students.As part of the project on good behavioto improve behaviour at meal times, especially at school lunch (snack). Years of experience have taught us that we have significant room for improvement in this field. To achieve our goal we have chosen small steps that have already been successfully included into the work process at the school.

Good Behaviour – a rainbow that colour our life – 2008/2010


Slovenia – Osnovna šola Idrija

task of our school is to constantly try to improveeducational process whilst taking into consideration the needs of the students.

builds on good interpersonal relations, trust and respect.

school is:

the way to knowledge

This vision is a way to put into practice the values of all participants in the education the parents, teachers, students and the broader community. These values

are: knowledge, creativity, cooperation, and friendship. Our goal is, while taking into se values, to make learning active, to be able to help each ot

learn, to reduce student conflict.

Good behaviour and the interpersonal relationships connected with it encompass a number of areas which can be improved by working with the students. As part of the project on good behaviour, our school last year decided that we wish to improve behaviour at meal times, especially at school lunch (snack). Years of experience have taught us that we have significant room for improvement in this field. To achieve our goal we have chosen small steps that have already been

essfully included into the work process at the school.

2008/2010 79

improve the educational process whilst taking into consideration the needs of the students. The

This vision is a way to put into practice the values of all participants in the education and the broader community. These values

are: knowledge, creativity, cooperation, and friendship. Our goal is, while taking into , to be able to help each other to

Good behaviour and the interpersonal relationships connected with it encompass a

that we wish to improve behaviour at meal times, especially at school lunch (snack). Years of experience have taught us that we have significant room for improvement in this field. To achieve our goal we have chosen small steps that have already been


We have created and carried out the guidelines and rules on behaviour at meal times in concordance with the education plan of the school. We found it important to make the students a part of this task, who expressed their thoughts on the matter, wrote stories, created poems, made posters, comics and pictograms, role played manners at meal time, worked on the proverbs. The fundamental premise of the activities was the Slovenian folk proverb: "Even a dog likes to have peace when eating."

BEFORE WE START OUR MEAL WE SAY TO EVERYONE "ENJOY YOUR MEAL"

AND REPLY "AND YOU, TOO"

IT IS INAPPROPRIATE TO BURP AT THE TABLE.

WE DON'T SLURP NOR DRINK SOUP FROM THE PLATE. WE ALWAYS USE THE

CUTTLERY.

Spring day for Europe

In 2009 our school was also part of the international project Spring day for Europe that we have successfully merged with the project Comenius and therefore tried to bring Europe closer to students in an interesting way. We were happy that the year unfolded in a spirit of creativity, since one of the desired goals of our school is also to have innovative students. What were the activities carried out at our school?


- We took part in the dance, literary, and art contest on the topic of LOVE

- Some students took part in the European online contest for the best poster

at the 10th anniversary of Euro.

- Teachers discussed questions regarding the European Union, and kept

students informed about current events in Europe and encouraged them to

try to keep in touch with them using the media.

- We got to know Europe at different lessons with the help of interactive

online didactical games and a CD-ROM Raziskovanje okolja EU. The students

have made posters of our partner countries in the project Comenius. During

the lessons we’ve emphasised the students’ ideas and thus developed their

creativity (creating objects of their imagination at Art classes, poetry and

story writing...)

- During English lessons, the students have had the chance to communicate

with their peers from other countries and written letters to each other (pen

pals).

- We’ve also prepared a public event at Spring day, where the students

performed with various acts. The emphasis was on the creativity of their

performance.

- The students were also visited by our famous world traveller Benka Pulko,

who presented her talks throughout Europe to the students.

- As part of after lesson classes we created the ‘European props’ for the final event, where we celebrated Europe Day, and at the same time concluded the project. As part of the Comenius project, the students made posters about European countries. - For Europe day (9th May) we had an exhibition about Europe and the European Union. - As part of the project Comenius, students and teachers have visited some schools and partner countries in the project. - As part of our activity on creative writing we also published a school newspaper, a part of which was dedicated to European Union, Comenius, and Spring day.


The impact of video conferencing

As part of the behaviour project we’ve connected with partners schools by means of videoconferencing as well. They have been a very attractive way of working for the students of different age groups. By means of modern technology they were able to have direct contact with their peers from other countries. They practised English and made new friends. Many students still keep in touch with their newly made friends by letters, internet (Skype, MSN, Facebook, etc.). We had several video conferences with different partners and students of different age groups. In the videoconference with Malta, the younger students were involved. They prepared an interesting short programme where they presented our school in English and introduced themselves. They also performed short traditional Slovenian stories, sang a few songs in English and Slovenian and showed folk dances. The best thing about this was that they were able to communicate with their peers freely, asking each other different questions. The Comenius team of student has had video conferences with the other Comenius teams, especially from Italy. Individual classes also took part in video conferences with Ireland and England. The impact of teacher and pupil mobilities

The international project we took part in was a project that brought people together on school, local and European level. It encouraged research work among the students and teachers. The additional value of the project shows through the inclusion of the European dimension into the lessons. The great impact of the project was the international student and teacher exchanges, mobilities. They have enriched the personal and professional growth of the teachers, enabled their professional development because they offer a lot of opportunities to lear for different educational methods and facilitates cooperation with foreign colleagues. A further benefit is also in the exchange of examples of good practice. For the students the mobilities have been a priceless experience. Through the contact with other cultures and peers from abroad the students learned the value of their own culture and been able to compare it with other ways of life.They’ve overcome many stereotypes. The motivation to learn English and other foreign languages, as well as learning about European countries has definitely increased, too.


Parental involvement

We tried to include parents into the project wherever and whenever possible, mostly where we felt that their cooperation is meaningful and useful. At the beginning of the project the parents were offered to fill out questionnaires about the contents of the project, to get an insight into their views and opinions on good behaviour and interpersonal relationships and therefore contribute to achieving the set goals. The parents also took part in a puppet show that served as a basis for discussion about good behaviour. The parents of all the students of our school helped prepare the Educational plan of the school, which was tightly intertwined with the contents of the project. Discussions about the important values in school and outside it have been going on parent-teacher meetings where the parents have exchanged their views and opinions. Parents also played a very important role in the preparation of the partner meeting in our town. They were happy to give hospitality to 22 students from Italy, Turkey and Romania who visited us. They were all very happy to host the students, as they have assured us at the evaluation meeting. They were also very willing to help prepare social events where they have greatly contributed to the successful conclusion of the meeting. The parents have been an important partner in achieving our common goals and their willingness to always help and support us has really meant a lot to us.

Arranging a Meeting- the impact on the school

In October 2009 we have hosted a project meeting together with another school from our town – Vrtec Idrija. In the five days, full of different activities, all the participating teachers and students from partner school joined together under the project’s slogan “Good Behaviour – A Rainbow That Colours Our Life”. The meeting in Idrija was attended by 24 pedagogical workers of the partner schools from Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Turkey and England. The ongoing activities at the school were made even more interesting by the 22 guest students of partner schools from Italy, Turkey and Romania that have been hosted by our grade 8 and 9 students. The guest students were welcomed by the hosting families who took responsibility for their well being in the time of the meeting. They have taken them into their families and homes with great hospitality, and thus opened the doors of their home to a different culture, had a chance to gain nice and valuable experiences as well as practice their English. Many friendships made in the first year of the project, when our students were hosted by the Italian families, were strengthened, and even more


new friendships were made. The guests of our school were also addressed by the mayor of our town Mr. Bojan Sever, and our headteacher Ms. Nikolaja Munih who also presented the Slovenian school system. Our students performed a school play / puppet show about one of our traditional folk stories Mojca Pokrajculja. We presented our school and tried to give the guests an insight into the work at our school – they were able to see the different classes, lessons. The teachers from Malta have prepared a fun lesson in which they’ve tried to teach our students a Maltese traditional dance – our students loved it, even though they were a bit shy at first. The guest students also had a chance to participate in sports games and activities prepared by our P.E. teachers. Our students were very keen on getting to know their peers and learn as much as possible about them - it was a really valuable experience. The peak of cultural events of the whole meeting was the evening of poetry where we were given the chance to meet the first lady of Slovenia Ms. Barbara Türk, the honorary patron of the project, who honoured us with her presence. The evening was marked by a selection of Slovenian poetry, interpreted by our students, as well as the poetry from the hosting countries. The experience was magical and left a long-lasting effect both in the students performing the poetry as well as all the guest partners, teachers and parents. Hosting a meeting gave us a chance to show our partners some of the beauties our small country has to offer. Our students took them on a guided tour of our town Idrija, and showed some of the most important sights, briefly explained the history, tradition and culture, and characteristics of life in this part of Slovenia. The guest students even had the chance to try making our traditional dish Žlikrofi. On the whole-day trip around Slovenia the guests got to know our capital, Ljubljana and experience the wonders of the underworld of Postojna cave. It was an amazing experience to see our students spending the time together so harmoniously, regardless of all the cultural differences. Hosting this meeting had a great impact on our school. We gained a lot of in terms of how to prepare a meeting, organise different activities and carry them out, how to plan work meetings, etc. all of which is going to be very valuable in our future work. Our institution is richer for the feeling of constructive cooperation among students, teachers and the local environment and is even more aware of the importance of common goal achievement.



Slovenia – Kindergarten

We were invited to join this international project by its coordinator, a person who

had conceived it, and were particularly attracted by its contents and the possibility

of international cooperation.

At our institution we’ve been following Step by Step Programme inside International

Step by Step Association. Our Pedagogical Standards of Quality are:

• Individualization, Supportive adult- child interaction

• Partnership with parents

• Supporting learning environment

• Meaningful learning

• Monitoring child development and learning and therefore corresponding

planning of pedagogical work

• Professional development

• Social inclusion

Therefore this project fitted to our model of work very well, so we found it very

challenging. The project began with questionnaires for teachers and parents who

have shown us the interest and positive attitude to the discussion. Over half of

surveyed parents decided to actively participate in the project. All the planned joint

activities have been implemented, plus many others that related to the project.

ECO-project was implemented simultaneously and linked to. Work in the project has

contributed a lot to professional development of teachers, their intercultural

awareness, communicating and interest in learning modern languages. We

organized a refreshing course of English for our staff. The effects of the project were

certainly positive and versatile and have already indicated in promotion of good

behaviour, manners and interpersonal relations.

The project as a whole and our work inside it was presented to the spouse of

President of the Republic of Slovenia, Mrs Barbara Miklič Türk, the honorary patron

of the project. Project website was developed by the partner school from

Portugal (behaviourproject.110mb.com/). There is also a link to our blog

(behaviourprojectslov.blogspot.com), published to enable current reporting about

the project activities.

All teachers who had the opportunity to participate the International meetings at

partner schools in different countries have agreed that each meeting left a lasting

impression. Learning about other cultures and school systems gives us the width and

the opportunity to compare where we are and what progress can be done.

Participating in mobility was very motivating for further work.


Teachers were very happy to see their work presented and recognized their own

contribution in the process of project activities. They also learned to understand and

better the importance of cooperation and negotiation, teamwork and decision-

making by consensus of all partners, which is a difficult task. We found it an

important new experience, to have the opportunity to be observing teaching -

educational process and identify strategies for teaching children of the same age

regardless of whether they are in kindergarten or school. It is also very interesting to

compare classroom equipment, furniture, didactic materials and products.

Cultural diversity of the countries involved was exceptional and we were touched

by the hospitality and friendliness of the staff of hosting institutions and the local

population. It is also very fruitful to sometimes have a look over one's own fence

and prevent oneself from being too self confident. At the international meetings

teachers have had the opportunity to be presented cultural diversity through

exhibitions, international evenings with tasting delicacies brought from all

participating countries, etc. Participants were also given gifts that represented the

cultural specificity of each country (eg. from Slovenia these were: hand made lace,

Neanderthal flute replica, honey, sea salt, painted beehive panels). Also at the

reception ceremonies host schools presented their cultural heritage through songs

and dances.

Contacts with partners were held at meetings and via e-mail, Skype, exchanges of

products and photographs, materials, video-conferences between groups of peers

from partner countries and coordinators.

Parents were involved at all levels and stages of the project. Working with parents

and also grandparents has achieved very good results in many ways – first by

presenting the project at parents meetings and lectures on the developing of

emotional and social intelligence at children. International and intercultural

dimension was emphasized by presenting the Turkish tale in a leaflet. Parents

helped us in the implementation of video-conferencing, recordings, taking photos,

collecting proverbs, contributing gifts for visitors, dolls - including travelling

character, translating texts into English, preparing presentations of activities and

presenting partner countries to groups of children. Some parents also attended the

lecture at the meeting in Slovenia. Families were also hosting travelling characters

and reporting about it. Their contribution to project was very active while producing

books about good behaviour in different situations (at home, at the library, at

grandparents, on the road, in the theatre ...), which they did together with their

children. Parents wrote the text and children illustrated it. The interest that parents

showed for the project was immense. It was reported at parents meetings, that

they had often discussed all aspects of it at home, too.

Contacting partners through video-conferencing was implemented from the outset

of the project. All participants were extremely attracted by this way of cooperation.

Both, the children and the teachers have had the opportunity to see and hear each

other. Before the conferencing children had some introducing activities. They were

looking for information about the partner countries and learned about them.


In this context, various activities were held: exhibitions, drawing flags, reading

traditional stories, illustrating, learning greetings in the languages of partner

countries, etc.

On the other hand, they tried to show something that would be interesting for

children from another country, like making a real snowman for the children from

Portugal that haven't got snow in winter. Each videoconference was an interesting

experience, either in terms of behaviour and forms of communication, witnessing

communication in foreign languages as well as experiencing non-verbal

communication. Children noticed cultural differences, even different clothing.

Organizing the international meeting in October 2009 together with a partner

school in our town, was one of the most demanding tasks in this project, because

we wanted to make our visitors feel well, present our kindergarten, our work, our

town, the country and also give the necessary emphasis on the topics. The aim of

the meeting was to reflect and discuss how we can promote developing

emotional/social intelligence in children, to exchange ideas and make a detailed

plan of activities and the final product of the 2nd year of the project. VIP guests

were invited - representatives of local communities, school authorities...We were

honoured with the presence of the First Lady of Slovenia, Mrs. Barbara Miklič Türk ,

the honorary patron of our project. Among other, she attended our video-

conference with a school from the UK.



Turkey – Naşide Halil Gelendst İlköğretim Okulu

The impact of hosting a meeting We were very excited to launch the project in Turkey and we hosted the first meeting.

As hospitality is a very important part of Turkish Culture, we prepared for the meeting

very thoroughly. We were worried because we needed to reflect the spirit of the

Project. The year of the Project was at the same time The Year of Mevlana Celaleddin-

i Rumi. (The Great Turkish Philosopher and Piousman). This was very relevant to the

aims of the Project. So we decided to make a study that reflected the philosophy of

Mevlana. We prepared some PowerPoints and booklets for our Project team in order

to introduce them to him.

We gave some information to our students about our partners and their

countries, and taught them greetings in the languages of our partners. The visitors

from Romania provided a big opportunity for our students to improve their English

speaking skills. Our students and Romanian students made good relationships and

friendships. They also found good opportunities to taste their traditional meals and

saw the family relationships first hand . The students found the experience a great

opportunity to express themselves and get to know another culture. In order to

involve the families with our Project we organized a charity meeting for poor people.

The families made big effort to be the part of this activity and it made us so happy.


They also had an opportunity to show off their handmade work and traditional

Turkish meals. Besides all these activities we have shown our cultural heritage and

our country.

Impact on Students

This project had a huge impact on the 10 students that travelled to Malta and

Slovenia. These children were chosen from the Comenius team from the school. They

were the best English speakers and the ones who had worked hardest on the project.

Involvement in the project improved their English and their knowledge of different

cultures giving them a new perspective on the world. They experienced different

education systems and made new friends with whom they regular communicate with

on the internet. This was their first opportunity to visit a different country.


The impact of teachers visits Teacher visits were very useful and productive for our teachers. Learning the cultures

and education systems of their countries, as well as visiting their schools provided our

teachers with a different point of view and inspiration. These visits enabled us to see

the weak points of our educational system and our school.. We have shared our

impressions with our management and other teachers and we also thought of what

can we do differently in our school. In our visits sometimes we were surprised by

common aspects of all our cultures. It was a great pleasure for us.



UK Birmingham – Yarnfield Primary School

Eurobuddies

This after school club has been running for the duration of the Comenius project.

Every Tuesday between 3.15pm and 4.30pm a group of children aged between 7

and 11 years meet in order to discuss the project and work to understand the

similarities and differences between the partner countries.

This activity has developed into an extended learning opportunity with children and

staff working informally together. The favourite activities have been; exploring food

from different countries, a trip into Birmingham city centre to visit the international

Christmas market and hosting a party for Cecec (our visiting Slovenian character).

Children and staff would recommend this activity to our partner schools.

E – book

Working with the more able children from Year 5 (aged 9 – 10 years), the Deputy

Head teacher and the ICT technician produced an e-book which was published on

the school’s web-site.

The rationale behind this was to advertise Comenius to parents and pupils, raising

the school community’s awareness.

The content of the book was entirely independent, making little work for teachers

and raising the self-esteem of the pupils. This activity worked within the UK remit of

producing work for community cohesion. Yarnfield, being a multi-cultural school in a

culturally mixed part of Birmingham aims to celebrate and promote acceptance of

diversity.


Big Book

In order to share behaviour strategies with our partner schools and reinforce it

within Yarnfield it was decided to write a ‘Big book’. The book has been put in the

school library where it is a popular choice of children of all ages.

Working with children from across the primary age range (from 5 – 11 years) the

deputy head withdrew more able children in order to collaborate on the book.

Children were given themes which reflected the behaviour policy of the school; both

rewards and sanctions. Pupils then wrote about their theme and took a photograph

to illustrate their work.

Having the books colour copied and bound gave this work status. Working across

the age ranges developed a lovely working atmosphere. Younger pupils gained a

great deal academically from working with the older children whereas older pupils

benefited socially. Books were given to partner schools during the meeting in Italy.

This activity was successful in the quality of the product and the cross age mix of

pupils. The member of staff involved will repeat the activity.

Sing a Year at Yarnfield

In order to share our school culture with our European partners Yarnfield produced

an audio CD. This CD presented a representative sample of songs from across the

academic year. Some religious festivals were included as were songs representing

the school’s ethos.

Children from the whole school were involved in this activity, from Nursery to Year 6

(aged 3 – 11 years). The CD was made available to parents too. Partner schools were

presented with a copy of the CD during the meeting in Italy.

Behaviour flowers

Following our visit to Italy, it was decided to take on one of the many display ideas

used in Milan. The special needs department, both lower and upper school, made

‘behaviour flowers’. Children were given the subject for the centre of the flower e.g.

good manners. They then produced petals with examples of good manners.

This was very successful. The flowers were displayed in the school entrance and

were given a high profile. Visitors, pupils and parents commented on the good

quality display. Pupils who had contributed to the display had a sense of

achievement and their self-esteem was boosted. This group of pupils needed to feel

valued and this activity met this particular need.


Video Conferencing

As a requirement of the Comenius project is to involve the use of ICT as a

communication tool it was decided to link with partner schools via video

conferencing. The objective was that children will communicate with others across

Europe, building awareness and understanding.

Yarnfield linked with Lewes, Sussex and Ovens, Ireland.

The initial links had limited success due to the shyness and inhibitions of the pupils.

This was overcome with the provision of a tight structure and improved preparation.

Once again, the school inked the Comenius activity with existing work (global

communications) in order that staff did not become overburdened.

A member of staff, working with children with English as an additional language,

took the lead on this activity. Pupils were encouraged to think of questions for their

conference partners. They rehearsed the questions within the group before the

conference link. After this procedure had been initiated the links were increasingly

successful. The Yarnfield pupils were able to use their newly required English

language skills for a real purpose and they enjoyed learning from children in the

linked schools.

This activity was extremely successful and will be repeated in future years.

Organisation of a meeting

The initial Comenius meeting was held in Birmingham. Unfortunately, the member

of staff who organised this meeting retired before the project became active.



UK Lewes – Wallands CP School

Wallands is a mixed primary school of 470 pupils in a small town in Sussex. We

have a largely middle class intake which serves our local community with a Language

Unit attached to the school which brings pupils from all over the county with Speech

and Language impairment. We decided to join this project to widen the pupil’s

exposure to other cultures and give them a sense of becoming global citizens.

Rights Respecting Schools Award

At Wallands we have always believed in the importance of fostering social and

emotional intelligence. Comenius helped us focus on why it is important and look at

the ways we facilitate it. We decided to work on the project in our “Family Groups”,

which are mixed age classes that work together on personal and social education.

We worked on the project in those sessions and that helped the children and staff

to feel that we were working on our whole school ethos.

At the beginning of the second year of the project we decided to work on a UK

based award organised by UNICEF which is called “Rights Respecting Schools”. It tied

in so well with the aims of the project and fulfils some of the project aims for us on

improving pupil behaviour and helping them truly understand why empathy is

important. We taught the children the difference between wants and needs (sorting

pictures into categories for younger children). They learnt that needs become rights

and we worked on UNICEF’s “Rights of the Child” and the rights that all children in

the world deserve. We then worked on the rights that are important in our own

classes and the children devised their own class charters with what they felt should

be their rights in the classroom and the responsibilities they had to ensure all

children got their rights. From these class charters children from each class and

some teachers have now worked on a whole school charter. Now the rules of our

school are meaningful for children and they are starting to talk in terms of

respecting others rights. Working on the award has involved us becoming more

outward looking and has developed work on more ethical issues such as fair-trade.

We were able to bring this into the project and working with the visiting characters

from other countries. We had a whole school focus on the concept of fair-trade and

what individuals can do to make a difference in the world.


The Impact of hosting a meeting

When we hosted a meeting at our school in February it had a very positive impact

on the school community and pulled us all together in a common goal. We spent a

long time preparing for it with the

children teaching them about our

partner countries. We linked each year

group with a country and taught them

how to greet them in their own

language and created a display about

their country using what they had

learnt. We tried to connect it to what

the children were learning. Eg. The year

group who were connected to Slovenia

learnt about Slovenian rivers as that

was their topic at the time. We decided to involve the whole school in the project

though doing whole school work on social skills and citizenship education in our

schools “Family Groups”. These are cross year group classes that meet for half an

hour once a week. As the children are working in mixed age groups (from 6 to 11),

they learn from each other and bullying is reduced as they become friends and

protect each other. Hosting a meeting meant learning songs across the school to

perform to our visitors and working on the project during whole school assemblies

and family group times. It created a forum to talk about behaviour and other

cultures that otherwise wouldn’t have been there.

The impact of video conferencing

Video conferencing has enabled our children to have direct contact and has given

them motivation to work on the project and learn about other cultures. They have

been keen to show our partners

their work, For example our

children composed a Comenius

dance to Michael Jackson’s “Heal

the World” about making the world

a better place. They were so

excited to perform it via video

conferencing to our partner schools

in Malta, Romania and Malta. They

have watched traditional songs

from Ireland and Romania and this

has opened their eyes to different

cultures. When teaching the children about our partner schools and countries, they

have had an opportunity to ask children directly about their lives and culture and

that has made what they have learnt come alive for them.


For example, they learnt that Maltese people eat a pastry called Pastizzis and the

children made them and were then able to talk to the children in Malta about how

often they ate them and if they also cook them at home. Most striking for us was

talking to children from a school very different to ours in another part of the same

country and our children learning about other cultures in our own country!

The Impact of Teacher Visits

It has been so beneficial to our teachers’ own professional development to work on

something at school and present and share how it went with professionals from very

different cultures and institutions. Our ICT skills have been especially enhanced. We

have had the unique chance to experience life as a teacher in eight countries and

disseminate that experience to colleagues in our own country. In Lewes we were

stuck by how much the children gained from their awareness of their rich cultural

heritage. It made us aware of how much of traditional songs and dances how been

lost to this present generation. We are more focused on what we need to preserve

for future generations.

.

Good BehaviourGood BehaviourGood BehaviourGood Behaviour A rainbow that colours our lifeA rainbow that colours our lifeA rainbow that colours our lifeA rainbow that colours our life

Lifelong Learning Programme Comenius

School Partnership 2008 - 2010

This project has been funded with support from the European

Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors,

and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may

be made of the information contained therein.

Chapter 05

Conclusion

pages 99 -100


Chapter IV ‐ Conclusion

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. James Baldwin

The international school partnerships Comenius project entitled “Good Behaviour – A Rainbow That Colours Our Life” started in 2008 and finished in 2010. We believe our Project, involving children from 4 to 15 years from 8 countries, has been very successful. Students and teachers have, with the help of project work, improved their knowledge and skills in the field of behaviour, good manners and interpersonal relationships. At the same time, the project has given the participants the chance to develop in the field of teamwork, relationships, learning and teaching foreign languages, planning and carrying out project activities as well as using information and computer technology (ICT). The quality of project co‐operation and its implementation across ten schools from eight European countries was excellent. Factors which affected the successful outcomes included: the personal motivation of individuals, the support of management, careful planning of project activities, a good project team, integrating the project into the regular activities of the institution, and being continually open to change. Among the questions which were set at the beginning were the following:

What knowledge and skills are needed in life?

What is the importance of emotional and social intelligence?

What is the role of school in our time of rapid social change?

What are the activities that can help children in kindergarten or school to real understanding of the importance of interpersonal relationships?

We have tried to, at least partially, answer these questions by choosing, running and presenting a wide range of activities. As seen from the chapters of this book, during our two year project, partners encountered many similar approaches, and also a lot of diversity in relation to each activity.

Special value was added by the international aspect of the project with all the benefits that it entails (inter‐cultural dialogue, professional development, communication in foreign languages, the use of ICT, sharing experiences and ideas, learning about the work of partner institutions, mobility of children and teachers). We feel really happy that we were able to work together, share ideas and learn a lot about each other and from each other. In accordance with common European values, we linked together to encourage an interest, awareness and a sensibility in each of our children towards artistic, social and ethical values, to engender a sense of responsibility and respect and to enhance tolerance.


We motivated the children to learn about one another and to promote good behaviour through a variety of activities such as traditional stories and proverbs, a sticker competition, a multilingual dictionary of polite expressions, a travelling character representing each country and learning about good manners, comic strips, a didactical game and a CD of songs.

Working collaboratively under the Comenius remit we were able to:

Promote European co‐operation between the partner schools

Encourage contacts

Promote teacher mobility

Promote knowledge and understanding

Enhance the quality of education

Co‐operation between partners was productive. We managed regular on line meetings and supported each other. We exchanged skills and shared our knowledge and this meant all had an opportunity to develop professionally and personally. At project meetings we planned products and evaluated project work in each partner institution. This was effective and we managed to produce a good variety of pedagogical materials. All partners contributed to these products and promoted specific project aims inside their own institutions.

We used new technology extensively in our final products including videos, Powerpoint presentations, desktop publishing, dvds, pdf creator programmes, e books, the project website and blogs. We all had the opportunity to learn and practise the new technology. Using video conferencing was particularly exciting for those of our children who could not participate in mobilities.

It is hoped that the work accomplished in the Project will serve as an important reference point for each partner school as well as for others who are interested in this topic. It is also hoped that our work will be used as a teaching resource and that co‐operation with partner schools will continue, after the end of the funding period.

After the two year work we can say, that even 340 years after his death the main concepts of Comenius’ theory of education are still valid today. In a passage of The Great Didactic, Comenius wrote: Though these schools be different, we do not wish them to teach different things, but rather the same things in a different manner. I mean, all things which can make men truly men, and the learned truly learned; They should be taught in consideration of the pupil’s age and the standard of his prior preparation, which should always tend gradually upward.... The very sun in the heavens gives us a lesson on this point. In early spring, when plants are young and tender, he does not scorch them, but warms and invigorates them by slow degrees.... The gardener proceeds on the same principle, and does not apply the pruning‐knife to plants that are immature.... Just such a skilful and sympathetic treatment is necessary to instil a love of learning into the minds of our pupils, and any other procedure will only convert their idleness into antipathy...


“Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone displays

his own image.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


July 2010

Good Behaviour - a rainbow that colours our life

Documents

Transcript of Good Behaviour - a rainbow that colours our life