Learn, enjoy, achieve, discover, Together!

My World, Your World,Our World!

Comenius News 7

May 2012

The final piece of the jig saw!

What a pleasure it was to welcome friends from Spain,Hungary, France and Sweden back to England! The children

remembered when they came two years ago and were thrilled topresent the sixth and final piece of the jig saw.

The children sang songs of welcome on the theme of makingfriends around the world and our European partners taughtthem songs, games and stories in their mother tongue. Theschool hall was alive with song and then later the childrenwatched in silence as they saw children from partner schoolssinging their national anthems and dancing at spring festivals.We have gained a wealth of wonderful experiences, memoriesand resources which we will use to further enhance children’slearning in the coming years. Many thanks to everyone whoworked so hard to keep the project alive and sustain it to the

end. As Birgit and the Swedish team said,“We hope that this is not the end but the beginning!”

It was with great anticipation that we wentback to Chipping Sodbury; partly to meet all of

our partner countries, but also meet all the staffagain at the school. The difference we all felt nowwas that this trip was the last of our project, so wefelt a little sad. We were, as usual, well lookedafter and the children at school welcomed us in agood way. It was fun trying to teach children atypically Swedish song and dance that we have atour summer party, midsummer. They were reallygood and willing to try to learn. We also got tovisit their nursery school and it was interesting tosee how they have developed a small area ofspace.We had the honor of meeting the mayor,Mr. Jobbings. He told the city's history, includinghow the mayor was elected and that it was mostlymen seeking the mayoral role.It was with heavy hearts we said goodbye to eachother, but we decided that we should keep intouch through email and letters. We look forwardto hearing from you all!

Thank you to all the staff and Alison for the nicedays in Chipping Sodbury. Thanks also to allpartners for all the joy, inspiration for thedevelopment and lifelong memories.

Elisabeth, MariAnn, Birgit

What next?All countries are keen to maintain the links forged through this wonderful project. Ideas have ranged from ex-changing Christmas cards to sharing topics and creating pen pals. Some countries would like to bring their chil-

dren to visit each others schools.Whatever happens our children and staff have had the most unique experience. The pride felt as the project pro-

gressed was immense - thank you everyone for making our world a smaller place!For our children, countries are no longer just a name on a map!

The world is alive for them now! Alison

Hola from Spain!From the Spanish Comenius Team we all thank Alison

for being brave enough to coordinate such an ambitiousproject. Everyone (teachers, pupils, parents) have learnedfrom preparing, sharing, practicing, listening… all songs,games, rhymes, cultural information…etc.All of us have now a wider vision and experience about thecultural diversity and uniqueness in Europe and in our owncountries.This last meeting was not the end of the project, now we havelots of materials to go on learning from each other and we’llalways be in touch with teachers and pupils from all partnerschools.Meeting for a second time in England gave us the opportunityto learn more and better. The organization of the visit by theEnglish Comenius team was simply PERFECT. We enjoyedeverything: work meetings, meals, tourist visit to Bath (such anincredible city), assemblies at school, the visit to the Mayorand, of course, the party at school with all teachers andparents sharing such a wonderful time.We are sure we’ve made lots of friends and FRIENDSHIPJUST ENDS WHEN YOU STOP CARING. We’ll never stopcaring about all of you.

Now the world is my world, your world, our world:WE’RE ALL EUROPE.

What a pleasure to meet and to share these wonderfulmoments again! A great thank you to our friends from Raysfield

Infants’ for their welcome, still warm as usual,(mieux que as always),for giving their time and generosity.The visit to Bath was an opportunity for us to meet our partners for theproject while discovering the beauties of the city.During the first assembly, the pupils' reception with the songs revealeda lot of emotion, announcing the end of the project and the beginningof a long friendship between partners.The moments spent in the classrooms with the pupils and the teacherswere very instructive and of a real inspiration for the projects to come.The last assembly with the display of the complete puzzle helped toconcretise the rising friendship and the creation of strong links betweenevery participant in the project.The end of this project announces the beginning of a new era ;friendships, exchanges ....Now, we know each other better: My world, Your World, Our Worldmakes sense. We have to continue to enrich our relationship.

The separation was heart-rending,it is only a good bye,

see you soon…

While we were preparing for the final meeting, we had mixedfeelings as we knew that we were going to finish a great friend-ship and a fantastic two-year program inEngland. It made us feel a little bit sad, but the chance to meetagain in a month’s time cheered us up.We were thinking a lot about all the great things we had gainedfrom the project during the two years’ programme.We must say we have successfully achieved our goals, carried outour objectives. The objectives of the project gave us lots of greatideas for mutual collaboration with the partner schools inEngland, Sweden, Spain, France and Hungary. The whole projectwas full of activities covering all the areas of our educationsystems and well-reflected what was the same and what wasdifferent in our wasy of education.The activities encouraged both the children, the staff, parents andlocal people to work together with all their commitment andenthusiasm. They gained lots of knew knowledge and skills.It was a great opportunity to promote our institution, the work weare doing to bring up our children as global citizens. Now peopleunderstand how important it is to be involved in internationalprojects.We could learn a lot from the best practices of the partnerschools, we exchanged ideas about the new ways in education.We think it is worth thinking of how to build in our curriculumusing all the good ideas we have learnt during the past two years.The project was growing from month to month, it became moreand more successful. We felt that every partner took the projectvery seriously, they all prepared for the mobilities to the best oftheir knowledge and great enthusiasm.Thank you all for your great friendship and commitment. We willalways remember every moment of the events.We hope we will beable to work out a good program for going on with the project.Let’s keep contact in the future, too.Thank you for Alison and her staff for being so caring andsharing, and many thanks for the partners, too, for being suchwonderful friends.

We love you all. Ibolya/Judit

http://comeniusprojectapresaschool.blogspot.com/

http://mwywow.blogspot.com