Eurokids: Knowing me, knowing you

For the second time running, St Sebastian Primary School 'A' of Qormi is the co-ordinating school of a three-year Comenius 1 project with six other schools in the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and two from Belgium. The preparatory meeting for this project took place at Gunter Primary School, Birmingham, in January. The EUPU Socrates Office, Malta, finances this project Miss Agnes Cuschieri, head of the Qormi school and Mrs Sonia Vella, project co-ordinator, went to Birmingham for this meeting. There were 11 participants representing the seven schools.

During this visit Miss Cuschieri and Mrs Vella had the opportunity to meet and get to know people with whom they had been communicating through e-mail for the previous three months, when they were seeking partners for this new project.

At Gunter Primary School, this three-year project, "Eurokids: Knowing Me, Knowing You" was carefully planned and themes were set for each year. Concrete aims and the expected impact of the project on the partner schools and other interested parties were discussed. Through this project participants will:

¤ Learn about their shared and separate European identities, cultures and heritages

¤ Develop awareness of their environments - what is similar and what is different?

¤ Raise pupils' achievement using cross-curricular themes with a European dimension

¤ Use different technologies to communicate and exchange information about activities and events in their respective countries

¤ Provide varied, relevant and enjoyable, educational experiences for the pupils who are mainly in their early primary years.

It is hoped that all the participants will gain a positive view of themselves as (young and old) citizens of Europe; that they will realise that though they have many things in common, it can also be good to be different and that working together is possible and enjoyable despite cultural and language differences.

All partner schools expect to raise the pupils' achievements and standards by increasing their knowledge, by developing their communication skills, by learning through cross-curricular themes, and through their real and practical use of new technologies.

All the partner schools believe that they will benefit from following their agreed objectives to enhance teaching and learning, using themes with a European dimension. Further benefits will arise by gaining new ideas from each other.

Members of the local communities will be invited to participate in this project - to visit the schools and work with the children, to demonstrate their work and the roles they play (e.g. economic/industrial awareness), to view pupils' exhibited work.

The 11 participants also visited classes in Gunter Primary School, and met the teachers and pupils.

The meeting over and all partners back in their respective countries, the project got started. Each school prepared a 'cultural box' for each of the partner schools. In these boxes they put various items typical of their country.

Everyone at St Sebastian Primary 'A' is working enthusiastically to make a success of this, their second Comenius project.