Friday 6 December 2013

Visit to England


Visit to England.

The Van Leersumschool participates in the EU Comenius lifelong learning program.
In the current and next year our school is partner in the: "Get-Set-Go travel App" project with schools/institutes from England, Poland, Austria, Spain, Portugal and Denmark.
This project aims to develop a game together as participants,which allows pupils tot prepare for travel abroad.
The students will focus on different topics and try to find answers to questions like; "How can I come there?"
"What do I need to take with me?
"What will I see there?"
"Where ïs my travel aim on the map?" And
"How can I say Thank you in their language?"
The Get-Set-Go-Travel Aap we hope to develop as a series of small games to be introduced to students to show them how to travel.

In week 46 in November a delegation of our school went in Middlesbrough, in the north east of England, where we had the first project week.In this week we had a varied program. We worked together on the development of the app with the help of the ICT staff of Teeside University, we visited the classrooms and there was time for cultural activities.

One of the first activities was choosing a logo for the project. From all the logos that were sent in , the log designed by a Spanish pupil wasa chosen to be the project logo. We will publish it in the next message.

For the members of our delegation it was exiting as always to work in the classes.To work with the pupils with autism of mixed ability of Beverley School was a good experience. In Berverley School you will find pupils like those as in the Van Leersumschool, but also pupils that in the Netherlands are found in Practical education (Praktijkonderwijs) and schools for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities (cluster 3 scholen).
We recognized the format of working with workstations, pictos and TEACCH baskets. Not surprising of course, if we all look at the basics of Teacch, with is internatationally used.

Impressive and touching was also the musical performance given by pupils and staff for parents, us as guests and remaining staff on one of the evenings. It was amazing to see children whom we had seen quiet and in themselves in the classroom, change into enthusiastic musicians and singers on the stage.

In addition to the activities that were related to education, school and ICT, attention was paid to the English culture. An interesting part was the tour in Middlesbrough, with pupils as our guides.

All in all, it was a full week,a lot of impressions and many things to think about, being home again.

The objectives of the project will be further developed and worked out in the project weeks in Portugal, Spain and Denmark next Year and succesively in 2015 in The Netherlands and Austria.