COMENIUS: SÓCRATES 2004-05

Socrates School Project on National Stereotypes

How we see them. What are they really like?
How they see us. What are we really like?

Project Meeting, France

We began our project work this year with preparations to attend the project meeting in October at Gabriel Deshayes, St Gilda de Bois, France. As part of our contribution to the project we prepared a five-minute presentation about Liverpool. The pupils selected the content

(Images and topics); Shirley Critchley and Gary Lloyd recorded the narration for the presentation in French; and Elnora Martinez designed and coordinated the final product.

Two staff and three pupils attended the project meeting in France: Ms Martinez, Ms Evans and three pupils. Originally we were supposed to be four but one pupil could not get passport sorted out in time due to problems at the Liverpool passport office. All three pupils stayed with French families and enjoyed their hospitality. We attended a number of activities such as:

Visit to the city of Nantes.
Visit to a winery.
Visit to an ecological site that harvest salt from the sea.
A presentation evening at Gabriel Deshayes School in St Gilda de Bois.

All partner schools in the project presented their stereotypes to the school and local community. Ours was a PowerPoint presentation, which our pupils said was the best. After the presentation we enjoyed refreshments prepared by the French host families. Also there was music and dancing. The French pupils performed a dance and so did the Italian pupils there on an exchange for that week.

Here are some of the comments made by one of the pupils attending the event.

"In October 2004 I travelled to France along with two other pupils from my school and two members of staff. During our stay we visited salt marshes and learnt about how salt was extracted from the sea as they have done for thousands of years in this region of France. We went shopping; we visited Nantes and we went to the project presentation. The presentation was great and it was lovely to see and learn about other countries. I stayed with a wonderful French family who were very polite and generous. From my experience in France I improved my French, learnt about the French way of life and made a lot of new friends."

Laura Keggin Year 10

Project Meeting, England

From November to April we prepared for the project meeting in Liverpool. This entailed the following:

Drama and dance coaching for ten pupils for performances on Presentation Evening
Finding host families for 18 French pupils and 2 staff, 12 Spanish pupils and 2 staff, 3 Italian staff and one Romanian teacher.
Arranging project visits around the Merseyside area for our visitors
Organising Presentation Evening
Organising and planning of invitations and Evening programs
Creating CD presentation about Merseyside historical, natural and cultural heritages for the Presentation Evening
Organising and planning of exchange with Ortigueira, Spain

From the 11 th to the 15 th of April 2005 we played host to our project partners. Ruffwood staff and pupils welcomed into their homes our European friends. On the 14 th of April Ruffwood School presented the Comenius Project to the community. The aim was to present to the community the historical, cultural and natural heritages of all the participating partner regions. This was a very successful and entertaining event attended by pupils, staff, the Kirkby community and ours guests. The structure for the evening was as follows:

Welcome by Head Teacher
Spain - Drama piece to illustrate stereotypes; CD presentation of their region; dance to a Spanish song.
France - Drama piece to illustrate stereotypes; CD presentation of their region; dance by French pupils.
Italy - Drama piece to illustrate stereotypes; CD presentation of their region; majorette display to Italian song.
Romania - Drama piece to illustrate stereotypes; CD presentation of their region; dance to a Romanian song.
England - Drama piece to illustrate stereotypes; CD presentation of our region; a dance to a medley of Beatle songs.

Here are some of the comments from pupils who took part in this event.

By Danielle McKee - dancer

"I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the dance performance for the presentation evening. The teaching was great. We were taught different styles of dancing, to different music. We danced to Spanish, Romanian and English songs to create different moods of the final performance. After performing, it increased my confidence when performing in front of others. I would definitely like to participate next time."

By Dionne McHugh year 10 dancer

"We thought that the presentation that was held in our school was a good idea from the beginning. It turned out to be a success as we all managed to enjoy ourselves. We worked hard for many weeks on the dance routines, each with a different theme for our European partners. It took a lot of work to perfect our presentation but we finally pulled through and put on an amazing show for our guests. One good point about the night was that everybody left with a smile on their faces which was a great relief and our hard work had finally paid off."

Pupil Exchange to Ortigueira, Galicia, Spain

From the 23rd to the 30th of April, ten of our pupils stayed with Spanish families from the Ortigueira region in Galicia, Spain.

Our pupils got to know the area of Ortigueira better and its culture and cuisine. They felt welcomed and the families were pleased with our pupils and have expressed a wish to participate in a similar event in the future. While in Spain our pupils had the opportunity to attend IES Ortigueira and have some experience of what a Spanish school is like.

We also had project visits to Santiago de Compostela, La Coruna and Viveiro. They were treated on the last night to a meal at a local restaurant paid for by the host families. This is the second successful exchange we have had with our Spanish partner school.

Here are accounts from two of the pupils who took part in the exchange:

Megan McKeown Year 9

The first week the Spanish were over here they arrived late at night and most went straight to bed. The Saturday we took the Spanish to Liverpool city centre for the day as it was to be spent with the families. On the Monday we took them on a tour of the school and we went to Southport and Formby beach. When we were there we sat off with bubble gum ice cream watching the skaters. On the Tuesday we went to Liverpool. We had fun and they were shown all the Liverpool sites like the Liver Building and the docks. On Wednesday we had the best time because we went to Alton Towers and we went on the new rides. The other days were quite bland as we went to Chester and Liverpool on a shopping spree, which I enjoyed.

I enjoyed going to Spain. We got to see how similar the Spanish are to us but also the differences. Like they are more family orientated than us; they eat together every morning and night. We spent most nights with our friends in the cyber café and the coffee shop where we went every day without fail. Spanish coffee is fit. Our host families were very hospitable and they could not do enough for us.

The excursions were very interesting. We climbed to the roof of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, went shopping and brought presents for back home. On the excursion to La Coruna James Toohey walked into a wall and Dan our Spanish friend got everyone wet with water from a fountain. We saw a play in Spanish that I fell asleep at. We went to a disco on Friday and we went to the beach where all the English ran towards the sea and Mrs Martinez got paranoid and frightened of us being washed away so we did it even more to try and to make her head explode and just got very sandy and wet. We got back to Ortigueira and stayed in the wet clothes for the rest of the day.

I found the travelling horrible because I get travelsick easily. I did not like the bread that much because it is too sweet and sickly. We went to an aquarium and that night I went to the family's friend's house where we had octopus. Earlier that day I had seen them along with a giant dead one that stunk like hell. Then the next day at the leaving party we had it again and all the English thought I was sick coz I ate it. We had a big "eat the squid or octopus challenge". Mario, a Spanish boy, said I was different to the others because they all made a big deal of eating it and I did not. Nevertheless it was funny to watch them all bottling it or eating it.

Laura and me got sunburned and looked like tomatoes for most of the holiday. There were no accidents and everyone acted accordingly so no one got hurt and it was a complete success even waiting in Heathrow and Santiago airports; it did not bother anyone. I kind of enjoyed it to be honest. A lot of us would definitely go again.

Chris Hatch Year 8

In my opinion it was very weird going over there. I thought it would be so different but it wasn't. They were just like us apart from they put the milk in before the cereal! It was good because I got to know a real Spanish family. It is not like when you go on holiday where you do not speak to no one. You can relate to them and communicate. It is one of the best holidays in my life and I would recommend it to anyone and I look forward to the next one.

Peter Rudkin Year 9

When we went to Spain it took a long time to get to Heathrow. We were all bored on the minibus. I think I got a little excited when we got to the airport. As everyone knows I love planes and airports. Going to Spain was the best trip ever. The boring part was the travelling; it did not help that I had a migraine.

The family was fabulous to me and I miss them a lot. Marco's mum was funny and she played dominoes with me. I won a couple of times but then she caught up with me and kept winning. Marco's dad took me to the mountains to see the sea and so I could take some pictures. He kept giving me souvenirs to take home but I left most of them because I would not be able to get them through customs. Marco's brother was nice and funny. He tried to say English words but he got most wrong and it was funny. Marco was brilliant. I got along with him quite well. I still keep in touch with him. He said it was great when you were here. He took me to see his friends and they were nice, especially Eloy he was funny. I thought the whole thing was brilliant and I just want to thank madam and her two assistants.

Video of Liverpool’s historical, Cultural and Natural Heritages

At present we are working on a video to present at the project meeting in Sardinia in October. There will be two of our year 11’s organising and producing this video in July after their exams.