France
OGEC SEVIGNE ST-LOUIS
Our school, located in Issoire (Auvergne) is a quite small private school( 1.200 pupils aged 3 to 20). Our pupils come from various social backgrounds, which is an asset for our school in terms of tolerance, diversity… The secondary school counts 16 classes of middle-school and 11 of high school. About 86 teachers, and 35 non teaching staff work together in our school. Each year, our school organizes school trips (England, Spain, Italy) or school exchanges in Germany or Italy.
Our school is used to cooperating with other schools. Indeed, we have already been a partner in 2 European projects. The first project was about wine, the cultural heritage linked to the production of wine in 6 countries. The second one was named “Trails of extinct and active volcanoes, earthquakes across Europe” and it involved many teachers (geography, sciences, languages, IT…) Quite a great number of students and teachers participated during the 3 years project which ended in June 2018.
What’s more, for a few years now,some teachers initiate our middle-school students to robotics, programming/coding of robots and participate to competitions in France and also in foreign countries (USA, Estonia). We are used to working with local newspapers, municipal authorities to let people know about our various projects. English and PE teachers will manage the project but of course, every teacher who feels interested in our project will be able to join the work team. Our team of PE teachers (4 teachers in high school) is very dynamic, and willing to start a project about sport and outdoor activities. What’s more, they excel at team work. Our English teachers are used to communicating in English of course and to be coordinators of European project. The team coordinator will be Claire CENZATO. It would be the third time she has been responsible of a European project at school. She also had the opportunity to attend a training session about Erasmus + project in March 2019 in Clermont-Ferrand. Our accountant and headmaster agree to supervise our work and help us. Teachers will be asked to replace a colleague if needs be. We are used to manage this sort of situation (maternity leave, transfer…) For a few years, open-mindedness is closely linked with European projects and exchanges in our institution.
Our students and their families have shown great interest in such projects which broaden the mind, and help the young generation feel European citizens. Our students are willing to discover new people, new culture… and know that this experience could be a real asset for their future studies and even professional career. European cooperation with this kind of projects often ends up to be true friendship. We also believe that teachers and students learn a lot through the exchanges of teaching and organizational practices. Finally, the theme ‘sport and outdoor activities’ is by definition universal and yet, we are really curious to discover how PE is taught in our partner schools.