Profilirana ezikova gimnazia ‘Ekzarh Yossif I’ is the first and the oldest language school in Bulgaria established by American missionaries in 1881. Formerly being an American College for girls, it is now a public secondary school, ranked as one of the top educational organisations in the country. The school has been of great importance to our region and the country – a lot of politics, diplomats and business people have graduated from our school. Our school is specialized in languages. 902 pupils learn English, German, Spanish and French from the 8th grade to the 12th grade (aged 14 – 18). The school is accredited as an exam centre for the German Language Certificate of the Education Ministers Conference (Deutsches Sprachdiplom der Kultusministerkonferenz). Annually, our graduates sit an exam and almost all of them get a certificate on language competencies on level B2/C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Those who study French prove their language competences by receiving a French language diploma (DELF). A great number of pupils also get certificates in English; we are an exam centre because of our membership to both Cambridge and Oxford associations. The school aims, by providing a high quality teaching-learning process, to identify and promote the development and realization of the strengths and talents of each pupil in accordance with the inclusive education standard. A total of 102 teachers and nonpedagogical personnel are responsible to maintain a motivating environment for pupils‘ individual perspective of learning. Due to our pupils‘ high academic achievements and various talents, the school regularly takes part in a number of domestic and international competitions. Project work and extracurricular activities further develop pupils’ transversal skills, knowledge and competences. The school actively provides additional opportunities for our talented pupils‘ active involvement in artistic, social and voluntary activities.
The “Avram Iancu” Theoretical High School was established by the Order of the Minister of
Education on 5 February 1990. Our mission is to offer a complex and well-balanced education to our pupils in order to enable them to get to know themselves better and to value their potential and skills, to develop their personality, so that their educational path is a success. The values we promote are performance, professionalism, excellence, creativity, initiative, responsibility, team spirit, dynamism and communication. From the beginning, the school operates with grades 1-12, hosting over 1000 pupils every year. They come from school proximity but also from various other districts of the city and from the rural areas as well. Of great importance for the school is that a significant part of the students have remained in our school for all 12 years of study, which reveals the fact that pupils and parents appreciate the quality of the education act. Currently the grades 9-12 (high school cycle) specializes in the scientific profile: 2 classes of mathematics-computer science and 2 classes of natural sciences. Since its beginning, our school’s excellent results at the national exams and competitions have brought local and national recognition. We have a very high percentage of graduates admitted to universities. In the national ranking (based on the Baccalaureate results), in the last consecutive years, our high school was ranked among the top ten high schools in the country, and placed second at a county level. Over time, our pupils were Olympics at national and international subjects such as Mathematics, Chemistry, Philosophy, Biology, Romanian and English Language. In its 29 years of existence, our school has not only encouraged excellence in education, but also the development of students’ creative skills in the school clubs of extra-curricular activities (volleyball, cheerleading, robotics, journalism etc.) and various local and national projects. At institutional level, with the change of managerial team in 2015, there were identified new training needs, and new strategic targets have been established that are part of our European development plan aimed at modernizing and internationalizing the school.
GRG 21 Ödenburger Straße is one of the biggest public secondary schools in Vienna. Nearly 1200 pupils are taught in 3 different branches by over 120 teachers: the focus is on European languages, STEM, Social Skills & Entrepreneurship. Since the 2003/04 school year, we have been giving new impetus to the individual branches from the 1st grade onwards such as languages and cultural knowledge, natural sciences, and entrepreneurship. Since 2007/08 we have been using the autonomous possibilities to give our upper secondary school a clear profile. The school was awarded the European Language Label and has been a partner school of the European Parliament since 2018. A language centre with 30 PC workstations and special language software was established on each PC, last renovated and modernised in 2016. As a partner school of the European Parliament, some of our pupils are youth ambassadors of the European Parliament and regularly take part in international exchanges with pupils from other EU countries. In November 2018 the project “Experience Democracy” found a remarkable conclusion in a school celebration. A great number of digital and analogue materials were developed, designed and presented by the students. In order to ensure modern teaching there is a wide range of further training opportunities for teachers. This is documented in the award as “eEducation Expert” school, whereby this status is renewed annually.
The Aristotelio Ekpedeftirio Serron ( ARISTOTELIO) EKPEDEFTIRIA SERRON EPE is a secondary school that includes Junior High School and High School, with ages ranging from 12-19.We are in the North of Greece, near the borders with Bulgaria. The school has about 200 pupils and 30 teachers. Our pupils come from all social classes and from the whole surrounding area. The school curriculum follows the standards regulated by the Ministry of Education and the European Educational Syllabus, however it also includes a lot of extra activities that focus on sport, art, languages and new technologies. We emphasize on the use of foreign languages and we certify English, French and German after exams according to the European Frame for languages. We also include the use of modern technology in the teaching process and our students obtain ICT certification according to EU regulations. Our teaching methods include as well team work and initiative, as they are pupil-centered. We also aim to promote social and ecological awareness as we prepare the future active pupils of the world. The school has participated in two Comenius projects, „Tolerance as the art of life” and” Energy & Employability“. The second one gave us a lot of experience in the field of RES and we gained a lot of knowledge and expertise after the research and projects. The Erasmus Plus project ”Cultural Identity as the Key to the Gate of Tolerance in Europe (The Gate)” actually had as part of the products a lot of digital production and we may say we gained a lot of expertise as we were responsible for the website and the internet dissemination of the products, not to mention lots of our projects used state-of –the art technology. We have been members of the eTwinning platform for more than 10 years and we have actively participated. Moreover, as part of the chain of UNESCO schools, we participate in different initiatives and we take part in its actions. The school constantly takes part in different cultural exchanges that promote diversity and tolerance and awareness of the fact that we build our future and we are responsible through our actions for the future of our home, the Earth. It is worth mentioning that our school uses technology as part of the teaching approach; we do not use books as all the students work with tablets and are connected through OneNote platform to the teachers. We have quite an experience in the use of technology and the Internet in the teaching process together with all the dangers it may involve and safety precautions. After 10 years of active involvement in European projects, we have the expertise and the knowledge to run, monitor and disseminate Erasmus projects.
ITC Agostino Bassi was established in 1888. Our pupils come from Lodi and other villages/ towns near Lodi – Milan and Piacenza. 14% of our pupils are mainly from Egypt, India, Romania, Albania, Tunisia, Russia, and South America. The first two common years are articulated in 3 sectors: economy, tourism and technics. In Italy, education is compulsory from 6 to 16 years old, so the subjects taught in the first two years allow our pupils to have a final general preparation. Then we have 3 years of studies in 3 different sectors: AFM (Administration, Finance and Marketing) and RIM ( International Relationship and Marketing), Tourism and Technological sector. The school provides for pupils what they need to have success in their lives in the future. At present there are 1300 pupils and 170 teachers. They are offered a lot of projects through meetings, courses, conferences and they have the opportunity to obtain certifications in foreign languages in relation to the European framework – level B1 and B2 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese or ECDL for ICT. In the afternoon the school offers yoga and sports courses and drama lessons. A particular attention is dedicated to pupils with physical problems or mental disorder. Since 2014 our school has been part of PNSD, so that the ICT is the protagonist with 3.0 office, mobile, foreign languages lab, wifi systems. All teachers can use an online register, LIM, note-book, ipads and, in some classes, pupils have only digital books (web generation). In the past the school participated in Comenius (20102012, 2012-2014) projects and Erasmus+ KA1 (last year). There is also a partnership with Confucio University of Pechino and some exchanges with schools in China. Our school is also a University centre with two different courses, and next year it will probably open another course in tourism sciences. In the last two years our school has taken part in the “Cross Country Learning “; the project established a partnership with the University of Vierumaki in Finland and the ITE Bassi in Lodi and for one month our pupils followed PE classes in English with the Finnish pupils from the Institute. Our participation in the Erasmus+ “Entrepreneurship Matters” project will be important for us as an opportunity to grow up in skills, competences and abilities.
The Agrupamento de Escolas de Amarante is a group of schools of general education located in the city of Amarante in the north of Portugal. There are 1792 pupils attending school: 287 children in Preschool (3 to 6 years old); 701 pupils in 1st cycle of Primary School ( 6 to 10 years old); 448 pupils in the 2nd cycle ( 10 to 12 years old) of Intermediate; 356 pupils in the 3rd cycle of Low Secondary ( 12 to 15 years old). The staff consists of 170 teachers; the non teaching staff consists of 119 employees. There’s a psychologist. There are 111 pupils with special needs, and 959 receive economic aid (53,5%). The school‘s motivation to join this project is to promote the articulation between artistic subjects (music, dance) and traditional subjects (History, English, French, Geography, Mathematics). Our school is located in a disadvantaged socio-economic environment and such projects give our pupils the opportunity to contact other peoples, cultures, different types of learning. Another aim of the school is to improve the language skills of our pupils and this project is a great opportunity for this. Our pupils and teachers want to share the good practices in teaching music and dance. We are also eager to introduce our country and our district to pupils from other countries. Our school has a partnership with an art school – CCA (Amarante Cultural Center). This is a school recognized and certified by the Portuguese Ministry of Education for the teaching of music and dance. This school has more than 800 students, divided by five levels of education and maintains partnerships in other Portuguese public schools. This art school has certified and professionalized teachers in music and dance teaching. These teachers give classes to groups of pupils and individual classes, whenever they have to teach an instrument: for example, flute, violin, piano. Normally, this school makes small concerts with its young musicians. Some teachers participated in Erasmus+ KA1 project to train in Italy, in 2017. This experience was very enriching for the school as these teachers train their colleagues on the teaching practices they have learned from colleagues from other countries. Right now, our school is involved in an Erasmus + KA2 project, called ‘Healthy Habits, Happy minds‘, involving more than 100 pupils. This project (2018-2020) placed 21 students on the move.