COMENIUS SPAIN DAY 1

Today we arrived in Gran Canaria for the Comenius project except the German students, they arrived the day before. German students went to Casa Africa; it was very boring because they talked in Spanish accents. The Casa Africa is an organisation for connecting African culture with other countries, they also talked about dreams and they showed us pictures of African people. This was boring!

When the English people arrived they had lunch at Claret school the soup was not very nice. After lunch the German, English and Spanish students went to the theatre to hear the plan for the week. After school the Italian and the Dutch students arrived and went straight to the host families.

By Douglas  Quinn, Juan Torres, Svenja Richard, Jorge Cantero, Britt Van de Ven and Paula Armas.

THANK YOU UK

DEAR COMENIUS PARTNERS FROM UK,

WE JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL WEEK WE LIVED LAST FEBRUARY. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WORDS TO EXPLAIN HOW MARVELLOUS IT WAS.
THE FAMILIES WERE BRILLIANT AND OUR SPANISH KIDS FELT JUST LIKE AT HOME:NONE OF THEM WANTED TO LEAVE!, THE ACTIVITIES WERE REALLY FOCUSED ON THE PROJECT THAT IS JOINING US, SPECIALLY THE ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH CYBERBULLYING , SOMETHING THAT UNFORTUNATELY, HAPPENS SO OFTEN EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. THE VISIT TO LONDON WAS FANTASTIC AND WE JUST LOVE YOUR SCHOOL, BECAUSE...IT IS SO SIMILAR TO OURS!

THANK YOU UK AND WE DO HOPE YOU WILL BE AS HAPPY IN OUR PLACE AS WE WERE IN YOURS!
SEE YOU ALL SOON IN APRIL, 

PUPILS AND TEACHERS FROM CLARET SCHOOL, GRAN CANARIA, SPAIN

Comenius Project - UK meeting - 22nd to 27th February 2015

Partner schools from Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and Germany meet in the UK

 

During the week starting on the 23^rd of February 42 students and 8 teachers from our partner schools came to Oaklands as the Comenius Project 4^th meeting took place.  In total, with the host students and teachers from Oaklands we were a party of 94 working together on this project.  Here is an account from students of the activities they took part during this busy week:

Monday:

To start the day, we caught the bus to school with our German partners as they had arrived on Sunday evening. We went to normal lessons and did a tour of the school at break time. Anxiously, we awaited the arrival of our friends from Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.  Italian and Spanish students arrived around lunch time and the Dutch students around 5 in the afternoon. After having fun in History, Geography and PE, some of us got the bus into Portsmouth and went shopping and to Sprinkles Gelato. We had dinner with our host families and watched movies.

Tuesday:

On Tuesday we met at school around 8:00 to go to London by coach.  The trip was about 2 hours. When we arrived in London the first thing we visited was the Tower of London, we got to spent about 2 hours in it.  We had to split in several small groups. There were several things to see. For example the Crown Jewels and, of course, there was a lot of gold. We saw the crowns of several kings and queens as well as their cutlery. One of the highlights was the   original crown Queen Elizabeth 2^nd   used in her Coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey in 1953.  We also visited the Traitors’ gate. The tour guides were dressed up as middle-aged people.

 Of course we visited the ‘White Tower’, the centrepiece of the tower of London. The most outstanding things to see were the armour supplies of different kings from different years, including the weapons. After the Tower of London we went to the ‘Natural History Museum’.   When we entered the museum we were in the big hall with a dinosaur skeleton and then we were divided into small groups to look around the museum by ourselves. There were four different areas in the museum: green, blue, red and orange area. They had many stuffed animals like birds. They also had dinosaurs, fishes, human biology, gems, insects and many facts about the planet there. We had nearly two hours to visit what we wanted. We were also able to buy souvenirs at the souvenir shop.  After the Museum, we made our way back home in our coaches; we encountered some traffic as we made our way out of London.

Wednesday:

On the third day of the COMENIUS PROJECT we went to Action Stations in Portsmouth. We left the school about 9:30 by coaches. We had workshops on bullying and cyberbullying. We learned a lot about bullying and how to prevent and fight against it. The Instructor played a game which he called “I am the Boss”. The game was about making clear who is the boss without saying anything else except the game’s name and using body language. At first, people thought that being the loudest was the key to winning and appearing to be confident but as the day progressed we all began to realize that having an open posture and being calm were the real keys to success. The final contestant was so “cute” that the champion gave up on the title and the contestant won without the round even starting. This taught everybody that you don’t need to be tough to avoid bullying but simply appear confident and not seem oppressed.  After our work on bullying we moved onto the topic of cyberbullying which contained information on how easy it is to trace somebody’s digital footprint (the record of everything you do on the internet)and how it can affect your life in the future. A lot of employers will check a person’s online presence before accepting a job application. So we were shown how to prevent any unwanted information on your footprint like setting privacy options on social media networks or use a good password so nobody can access your account without your permission.

                                                                                                                    

 

 

After the workshops, we had time to explore Gunwharf Quays in groups of four. Some visited the different stores and some already prepared for their trip back to their home country. We met again about 14:30 to get dismissed. After the dismissal, some of the students went back to school with the teachers and some stayed to do other activities with their exchange students like watching a movie or getting up the Spinnaker tower. Everyone had a very fun day at Gunwharf Quays!

Thursday:

On Thursday we met in the morning at school to work. We got separated into multi nationalities groups and each group worked on different topics. One group produced 5 Scrap books about the week for each country to take home. Another group worked on a video about bullying. Two groups made calendars based on the UN Convention of Human Rights articles.  After the work was done, we presented the different topics to the other groups and discussed about them. Mr Quinn came to watch our presentation.  We end the day by going to the hall in P5 to watch the rehearsal of our school production. The international students were impressed with what they saw!!

Video -
 

Friday:

This was the day to say our goodbyes!!  The German students were the first ones to leave; they were taken by the school mini bus to Portsmouth Harbour train station to take the train to Brighton. Spanish and Italian students departure soon after and the Dutch students went back home around 11 o’clock.  There were some tears around the school and at the mini buses as students said their goodbyes. We had a fantastic week!

Meeting in Italy

Trip to Italy 3rd - 7th November 2014

Day 1

On the first day, we arrived at school with our suitcases and went to the first two lessons; we then met up with everyone else and got ourselves into the coach. The journey to the airport was a good laugh with all our friends and was excitable for all of us. When we got to the airport, again we had a good laugh looking around the shops and it was nice to have some freedom to do what we wanted to do. The plane journey was good and when we landed in Turin airport we all were a bit nervous as our families were picking us up from the other side. We got there and we met our families. It was a little awkward to start with but we got in the cars and went back to their houses and settled in - the families were all welcoming. By Megan, Tayah and Jess

Day 2

On the second day we met at the school at 8:00 after waking up at 6:30 and recycled waste for an hour. After that, we made the 10 min walk from the school to the castle nearby. Unfortunately, it was raining on the second day but we still managed to have fun. After a short speech in the theatre of the castle, we head off to look around the contemporary art museum inside the castle. Our group was split into 2 groups so whilst one looked around, the other group made prints of leaves and nature using a screen print as a memory of our trip. In the evening, we went back to our families and ate dinner before heading out on a trip with our families. By Annie and Helena

Day 3

On Wednesday we took the 40min journey into Turin (the nearest town) by coach. We split into two groups and visited two local landmarks. First we visited ‘Palazzo Barolo’ a 16^th century building with brilliant architecture and spectacular ceiling paintings. Then we explored Turin: a large town that at one point was considered to be the capital of Italy. After finishing a truly Italian pizza we went onto the next activity the ‘Museo del Risorgimente’. We had an interesting presentation about the formation of Italy. In a building originally built to be the parliamentary house for what was thought was going to be the capital of Italy. In the evening I met my partner’s family and a very friendly dog. There was always a friendly and family based atmosphere. By David

Day 4

On the fourth day we caught the bus to school or got driven in. We spent the morning in the computer suite and created posters about the code of conduct in our schools. Then we designed a Comenius project code of conduct. Other groups did different things for example environmental research or finding out about the Italian constitution. We spent the afternoon with our partners. Some groups went to town, some people stayed at home. We all met in the evening to show our parents the things we had been working on. After that most people met together with people from other countries and went out. Ben, Jonah and Adam

Day 5

This was the last day of our Comenius trip to Italy. In the morning we went to Turin and did a bit of sightseeing and shopping. We had a delicious lunch in the town centre and then said ‘goodbyes’ to our host families.  It was a very busy and enjoyable week. We were able to work with students from four different countries and exchange ideas on the human rights issue. We also learnt about the Italian history and culture and started new friendships. Hopefully, we will be able to meet again during the next Comenius meeting in the UK.

Dreaming of UK

Daniel, Juan, Teresa, Raquel and Alejandro are looking forward to visiting the Oaklands College next February. They worked hard on designing their school Code of Conduct and have been chosen to go to UK.
Well done !Keep working hard!

GREAT ITALY!OUR THIRD MEETING! BY CLARET SCHOOL FROM GRAN CANARIA, SPAIN

 ITALY...AT LAST!!

OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS FROM CLARET SCHOOL COULDN'T WAIT FOR THE ITALIAN MEETING ANYMORE!
THEY HAVE HAD SUCH A FANTASTIC WEEK! PREVIOUSLY, WEEK AFTER WEEK, THEY HAVE BEEN WORKING HARD ON THE PRESENTATION THEY WERE GOING TO CARRY OUT  IN FRONT OF THE OTHER SCHOOLS PARTNERS INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT:A PARLAMENTARY SPEECH ABOUT THE PLANET SUSTAINABILITY. FIRST, THEY STARTED TALKING ABOUT SPAIN, OUR LANDSCAPE, AND OF COURSE ABOUT OUR NATURAL RESOURCES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY!CANARIAN CITIZENS ARE VERY PROUD OF EL HIERRO, ONE OF THE TINY ISLANDS IN OUR ARCHIPEL, WHICH HAS BECOME THE FIRST ISLAND IN THE WORLD TO BE SELF SUFFICIENT ENERGETICALLY!!

THEY WERE MAD ABOUT RIVOLI, THE CASTLE, THE GORGEOUS LANDSCAPE, SO DIFFERENT TO OURS, TURIN CITY AND ITS MUSEUMS, THE RECYCLING EXPERIENCE, THE ART IN NATURE PROJECT, THEIR OWN SCHOOLS CODES OF CONDUCT,  WORKING COOPERATIVELY, ALL TOGETHER, MAKING IT EASY GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER!

WE , SPAIN , ARE SO THANKFUL TO ALL THE ITALIAN TEACHERS INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT:SILVANA AND MANUELA GRAZIE MILLE!!THE FAMILIES HAVE BEEN GREAT TO OUR KIDS, THEY HAVE FELT THEIR KINDNESS AND HOSPITABILITY.

THANK YOU ITALY!!
SEE YOU ALL SOON IN UK!!