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!