Multi-cultural sensory storybook in the pipeline

Professor Guzè Aquilina Primary School and Special Unit in Sannat, Gozo, together with our partner schools from Trieste in Italy, Roznava in Slovakia, Heraklion in Crete and Kirrikale in Turkey next year will jointly develop a multi-cultural sensory storybook, which will include objects that pupils can see, touch and smell while reading.

In this way our pupils, including those with special needs, will be able to experience each partner country in a multi-sensory way.

This was decided at the fourth project partners' meeting of the Comenius 1 project entitled 'Our Environment - A Lifetime Treasure', which was organised recently by our Greek partners, the 3rd Special Elementary School of Heraklion, a small school that caters for 31 pupils with special needs on the island of Crete. For us, this was also great opportunity to discuss and share experiences, since our school houses a special unit that caters for pupils with special needs from all over Gozo.

The project's aim is to instil in our pupils an attitude of care and appreciation for the environment. Each partner school, starting with the Italian partner that is co-ordinating the project, will work on a chapter of the book, which will feature the same character finding himself in different situations while visiting the various partner countries.

During the meeting the partners drew up next year's project plan and we reported what our pupils had been working on throughout this second year of the project since the third partners' meeting that our school had hosted last October. One of the main points of discussion was the online test that every pupil in the partner schools undertakes at the end of the year. This helps us teachers to evaluate the educational outcome of the project. We also looked into the possible participation of the younger pupils as well as the pupils with special needs by means of an online game about waste separation.

During our stay in Crete, we had the opportunity to visit a traditional village, geological sites and other places of interest. We spent time with locals and were impressed that all the people we met were proud of their culture and knew how to perform their traditional dance, the Sirtaki.

This is because pupils in Greece start learning to dance, sing and play their traditional music from an early age. Certainly our pupils too would benefit if such practices were adopted here.