Socrates - Comenius 1 School partnership
Making medieval culture and traditions alive in our own days

Report about the first project meeting

Partner schools:

• Coordinating Institution, Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale M. Giua Cagliari, Italy
• Lasnamäe Uldgumnasium Tallinn, Estonia
• Escola Secundária Daniel Faria Baltar, Portugal
• Centrul de Excelenta pentru Tineri Capabili de Performanta Iasi, Romania
• Srednja Biotehniška šola Kranj, Slovenia

All partner schools representatives met in Kranj, Slovenia, on 5th October and started working on the project. All the participants shared information about their educational systems, their schools, general problems. They also discussed issues concerning students with special needs and decided to produce some special material for them, which will be available on the project website.

They all read and analyzed the main points of the project plan and suggested new ideas.

They all decided to present the project to all the students, colleagues, parents and get them involved, encouraging students (both male and female, belonging to different social backgrounds) to express themselves in any possible way, according to their own personal interests and developing their autonomy.

Improving the knowledge of foreign languages (especially English) and students' ICT skills will also be an important point, together with the general involvement in the European dimension of all the activities.

After a general discussion, they agreed on the common activities to be carried out during the first year:

1. Visits to museums, temporary exhibitions, historical buildings, medieval monuments (castles, churches, monasteries). After each visit a report should be written, containing the aim of the visit, a short description of the activity, including at least 3 photos and 3 students' personal comments. Deadline: December 2006.
2. Learning material for students with special needs. Each partner school should prepare a simple text (maximum 2 pages) with explanations written in easy English, with one picture or a drawing and some language/comprehension questions, memory games, crosswords, treasure hunt games to motivate, help them learn and involve them in the project activities. Deadline: 15th April 2007.
3. Medieval recipes. Each partner school will try to find out an original medieval recipe, specific to its own country, by the end of February so that, after comparing all the recipes, a medieval menu could be produced by mid-April. The recipes will be published on the website and possibly also designed and printed using medieval characters and decorations in an artistic way.
4. Mini Multilingual Glossary. A list including 20 basic words/usual expressions in English and the national language of each partner school (Estonian, Italian, Slovenian, Portuguese and Romanian) will be created by the students by December 2006). This activity will encourage students to become familiar with other languages and promote a European dimension in this project.
5. Medieval Photo Gallery. A set of 10 photos for each country about medieval buildings will be created (a CD-Rom will be sent to each school, so that photos can be displayed during a special school exhibition) by mid-April.
6. Project website. The Romanian school will be in charge of designing the official project website including information on partner schools, reports on project meetings and visits (with photos), material for students with special needs, a mini multilingual glossary, a medieval menu and news about the project. This will help students develop their ICT skills and spread out the work produced by each partner school.

The subjects involved in the project are cultural heritage, history/traditions, foreign languages (with a special emphasis on English), social integration/exclusion, European citizenship, information and communication technologies, arts and crafts, religion, chemistry. Active methodologies will be used, such as group activities, workshops on several topics (for example medieval diet, clothes, music, weapons, farming tools, arts and crafts, everyday life and general tools, medieval gardens, etc).

In order to communicate the project developments and results and get more people involved meetings/seminars will be organized and open to the general public. Teachers involved in the project will keep mass media (for example newspapers and school radio), colleagues, headmasters and National Agencies informed on a regular basis. Teachers from all partner schools will keep in touch by e-mail to share experiences and get new ideas for the project development.

In order to stimulate students´ interest, teachers will also show them videos on medieval themes, they will take them to performances (drama, music) concerning medieval times.

Students will be encouraged to self evaluate their own work and there will be a final assessment for the first year project activities.

The final project meeting for this year will take place in Cagliari, Italy, at the end of April to discuss completed work and analyze produced educational material.

October 10th 2006

School coordinators,
F. Poças
C. Miron
B. Božnar
S. Tall

Project coordinator,
A. Porcheddu