OMS VIDIN O R S S A L C G N I T C CONNE E-NEWS Connecting classrooms
E-NEWSLETTER JUNE 2012
Birmingham-Russia-Italy-Israel-Bulgaria (Vidin)
Connecting classrooms for better future The British Council, a cultural relations body set up to build trust with the people of other countries through the arts, education, English language and its wider culture. The work of the British Council is precious because it is built upon trust earned over time. But trust requires a willingness to listen. Real friendship cannot survive in a one-way street, but thrives on mutuality and exchange. Britain 's own articulate and diverse citizenry gives the British Council a depth of cultural resource that few countries can draw upon. Cultural diversity at home fosters an understanding of the importance of listening to different points of view in other nations. Connecting Classrooms project was initiated in 2010 by the British Council in the region of Europe, to create sustainable, mutually beneficial partnerships between Ministries, districts, Local Authorities in the UK and Europe . These partnerships are to build trust and understanding between people in different societies and develop in young learners the cultural awareness and skills they need to mature into global citizens – positive contributors, in life and work, to the global society, through projects around issues of inclusion and community cohesion.
The acceptance of Bulgaria into the The British Council’s project “Connecting Classrooms” is in lign with the beginning of the reform of grade-school e ducati o n, which the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science is undertaking One of the goals of this reform is to break down the old framework of teaching; to transition from the traditional classroom system, to an interactive community which gives the opportunity to develop the potential of each student.
Connecting Classrooms project complements and has synergy with the school partnership and teacher professional development offers available from the EU, Council of Europe and other educational organisations in Europe. The current debate related to inclusion is taking place at different levels: political, social, economic and educational. This is extensively covered through the media, especially when disturbances arise as a result of disadvantage, misunderstanding and distrust. Policy makers in all European countries have expressed the need to tackle the issues and inclusion and improving minority achievement have been affirmed as a central goal of education policy across Europe . There is a clear understanding that it is essential for European countries to develop and use all of their human capital effectively in order to remain competitive in a fast moving world. This is recognised by member states and there is not a country in the EU that has not issued public statements about the need to ensure that none of its human resources and talents are excluded.
In a period of 2 years, the project worked on Collaborative Curriculum projects, Teachers Professional Development and Young Leaders trainings in leadership, cultural awareness and global citizenship and will gave young leaders the opportunity to participate fully in school projects. In the final year 3 of the project, the Connecting Classrooms will bring together partners from across the participating 20 European countries to outline the way forward to sustainable joint curricular projects in the network and beyond. Krassimira Tantcheva Partnership Projects Manager British Council
The Project “Connecting Classrooms” – Strengthens the Reform of Education in Bulgaria Another aspect of the reform is developing the education of the whole society. The project, “Connecting Classrooms,” supports to the greatest degree this element of the reform by adding an international dimension. The students’ interest in participation in the project’s activities shows
that such activties must be developed and enriched. For the teachers, participation is a unique chance to exchange experi e nce s wi t h o t he r teachers from the entire world, thereby raising their own professionaliam to a higher level.
By i nfo rmati o nal technologies, the project succeeds not just in connecting classrooms, but also in making new friendships and partnerships. Silvia Kantcheva State expert Ministry of Education,
Youth and Science
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
“Tsar Simeon The Great” School
Volunteering is ... January was full of vacations for us in Bulgaria. Two weeks ago, in
Vidin you could see more than 70cm of snow. The very cold weather (about 25C) was the reason that students stayed 2 weeks at home. But during the vacation, my schoolmates from Simeon The Great School in Vidin and I created a movie (Activity 1) with much snow and a good mood. We
worked also on Activity 3. In our school we have teacher from American program Fulbright - Vincent Hyland . He helped us to discuss what it means to be a volunteer and to create the slogan. You can see some pictures from our activities. The students think that Volunteering Helping through goodwill ; it's only a little for me, but a lot for you. And as a slogan:
Volunteering - it helps all. Make the Right Choice! Ivan, 16
Together against social exclusions Poverty isn't the only reason why a big group of people gets socially excluded. This also happens to people with disabilities and special needs. You have to help those people to find their place in society. We have students with special needs in our school. In addition a school psychologist and a speech therapist are working with them. There's an NGO for people with disabilities in the town. One of the pro-
gram's aims is to help those people integrate successfully, to get additional skills and knowledge according to their condition. Our school features ICT intensive studying. During the month of January we've held a web design and website design course for people with disabilities along with ICT teacher Tsvetanka Stoyanova. During the month of February we've held a course for
gaining computer skills—Microsoft Word, Power Point and Excel and using Skype and email. Anita, 16
100 words...What does volunteering mean? Volunteering is a kind of activity whose purpose is to help something or someone without getting paid for it. It doesn’t matter who you are, what the colour of your skin is or your age. It’s enough that you want to help.
You don’t get anything but the thought that you have helped somebody is enough payment. For example when you see an old person who is trying to cross the street, you don’t think what you would receive, you just help him.
When you are a volunteer you have to spend your free time helping other people.
By Monika, 16
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With care for elderly There has been a pensioner club formed in Vidin. The club unites people aged 60+. Some of the participants are engineers, doctors, exteachers, etc. The club has its own chore that makes charity concerts on different customs.
niversaries.
The people from the club often organize birthday celebrations and an-
The third day of March is special
For the needy there is a dining hall where people can get warm food. One of the last clubs' activities is collecting clothes and food for the House for elder people in Kula village and Novo Selo village.
100 words...Tolerance among races Tolerance is a word in social and public spheres. It expresses support and understanding of others. Through it we can understand the thinking, customs, ideas and traditions of others. It helps us to communicate with others. Moral tolerance is associated with a person's personality and moralilty is related to perception and trust in a person's personality. It
includes respect for others and acceptance of their values not give importance to religion or lifestyles of others. Each of us can be tolerant as long as you want. This is a matter of exercising judgment. If everyone tried to be more tolerant of other world would be much prettier. Verry, 16
for us, Bulgarians. Then we celebrate our National Holiday (Bulgarian's Day of Liberation from the Ottoman Rule). We decided to visit the elderly people, who live in one Home near Vidin and to celebrate together the National Holiday. The students learned some poems. They made a computer presentation with songs and a movie. We bought white and red yarn and made "martenitsas" as a gift. It is difficult to find words to explain the expression we saw in the eyes of these people. There we saw hope and gratitude. Not many people come to visit them, and we were dear guests. We promised to visit them again before Easter and to paint eggs together.
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
Foreign Language High School “Jordan Radichkov�
Bulgarian traditional dance tutorial The students from Foreign Language High School "Jordan Radichkov" who participate in "Connecting classrooms" project made a bulgarian traditional dance tutorial video clip. In this clip they explained how to dance Pravo horo, Chichovo horo and Dunavsko horo and showed the steps first slow and then the whole dance.
This dances are easy to learn and it is very entertaining to dance on this kind of music because it is specific for this country and nationality. By Gergana Andreeva
Also in the video there are shown parts of bulgarian traditional costumes.
Our school ... Each school was set the task of making a video-clip describing the particular school.
details about the school. The library, the radio room and the
As always, we did our assigment and, with a lot of efforts, wrote the script and allocated a part to be played by each member of the team. The exact location of the school is showen at the beggining of the video. Kira Vladimirova describes the lay-out and gives some
By Lidya Ilieva
Say NO to Bullying at School On the Self - Governance Day (9 May) several workshops were devoted to the Connecting Classrooms project, to the topic of Say NO to Bullying at School. In addition to the students who have been working on the project since the very beginning, many new kids become involved. They were quite curious and active in doing the assignment. A short video against bullying
newspaper are also described. You can also see the school Debating Society, the School Council and the Euro-Club. The preparation and implementation of some of our most recent projects and parties are also covered. We owe graditude to Chelssie Ivanova of shooting editing the video.
was shot, involving 14 players. Besides, a lot of beautiful pictures and thoughtful essays were created and displayed in the school lobby. Even the students who had not taken part in the workshop were very interested and liked our end products. By Chelssie Ivanova
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My Connecting classrooms story ... On 23.11.2011 I had the opportunity to go in England on one of the important meetings of the project, where we had to introduce our countries and our activities during the past years, to discus and come to conclusion about the next activities.
see that all countries work hard together. We become friends and can make `wonders` together and to learn many thinks from each other. We are like one water drop and in the same time very, very different.
We had a lot of work, there was many views and everyone had a different thinking, but that was the main aim, to receive the different ideas, to think what is important for all countries and to do it together.
By Maria Tsolova
It was useful for me because I see how the other countries work and what they think about the project. I
Say NO To Violence
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
Math School “Antim I”
“Let’s clean Bulgaria for one day” The national campaign “Let’s clean Bulgaria for one day” was another opportunity for us to try and organise as many volunteers as possible. The members of our team had meetings with nearly all the classes in ourt school. We discussed with our classmates the idea of volunteering
and how everyone can do something to help make our town cleaner and more beautiful. Then we gathered information and marked the most polluted places in our neighbouthood. Three teams were formed to clean the school yard, the park near the St Dimitrius Cathedral and the area arround the railway station.The school supplied us with gloves and plastic bags for the garbage and we were ready for
action! And when we gathered in the morning of May 12th we were very happy to see so many students in the school yard. More than 80 volunteeres joined us in this activity! We did a really good job, had a lot of fun and we hope we contributed to the better look
A Survey On Volunteering What is volunteering and are we, Bulgarians, willing to do voluntary work? To find the answer to these and some other questions, concerning volunteering, our Connecting Classrooms team decided to make up and conduct a survey among our classmates. After deciding on the questions we would include in the survey, we discussed the best way to conduct it. As a result the students from two of the
8th classes together with their English teachers had a discussion in class on volunteering, defining it and giving examples of volunteer activities they had taken part in. It turned out that almost half of our classmates had been volunteers at some time or other, but few had really worked actively and for more than a year as volunteers. However, most of them were eager to be volunteers in the future, if the cause was really significant – helping someone in
need, cleaning the town, etc. We understood that the good example, set by our families, friends and teachers, is very important and quite often decisive for our choice to participate in volunteer work. Finally, each of the students from these two classes filled in the survey we had prepared. We summarized the answers and made aPowerPoint presentation illustrating the results of our survey.
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The Charity Football Match In May our school celebrated its 40th anniversary. The charity football match was part of the festive activities, which turned out to be an unforgettable event for our school. The initiative came from our team and was organized together with some of our classmates and teachers. It was not an ordinary football match, however, because one of the two football teams consisted of 22 exstudents of our school, who gradu-
ated between 1974 and 2006 and who work now as doctors, teachers, engineers, policemen, businessmen, bank managers and mayors. The second team was formed by 10th and 11th - grade boys from our school. The match was really great fun, but most important of all – it was organized by us to help a classmate of ours, who has a serious health problem and really needs our help and moral support. Our Connecting
Classroom team members Magi, Iva and Boryana were among the people, who prepared the charity boxes and collected the money during the match. We were happy to see that all our classmates, teachers, parents and the other people who came to see the match opened their hearts for the noble cause. At the end of the match we had 623 levs in our charity boxes which made us feel satisfied and proud of ourselves.
A Slogan And Logo Were Born
The Connecting classrooms group of the Maths and Science Secondary
School chose their slogan for the 3rd activity on the 14th of May. In order to do that we set a meeting for brainstorming and sorted out the best opt i o ns . T hi s ye a r’s t he me “Volunteering and tolerance” gave us lots of ideas. Among the proposed were: “Helping is loving”, “Volunteer from your heart”, “See from the good side, “Give something to the world” and more, but eventually “Help to be helped” emerged as the most favorable choice. Then we decided to make
a logo and once again had to brainstorm. The concept with the puzzle was eventually chosen and then drawn by Martina Alexieva – our most talented artist. Everyone on the crew agrees that the 3rd activity was one of the most interesting this year and the one that really got us to thinking about the core meaning of the project.
By Tihomir Rachev
, 16
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
Art School “St.st Kiril and Metody”
Activity 1-Ice Breaker This activity proved to be the most recreative for our students since we are an arts school and they were feeling at their best while performing the dances. The students selected threes typical for Bulgaria folk dances to show to you. Their first pick was Pravo horo because this is the easiest and most common Bulgarian dance. Dunavsko horo was a good choice, since it is quite typical for our region- the Northern region. And the last, but most emblematic of all Bulgarian
dances is the so-called Ruchenitsa. The task was carried out by students from the 8th grade who are specialized in the study of folk dances. They were helped by their choreography Tsvetan Lozanov along with the co-tutor Ivan Nikolov.
Activity 2: Volunteering We’ve performed two tasks throughout this year- two charity events – the Christmas Bazaar and the Easter Bazaar. The Christmas Bazaar was organized to raise money for children in need who study at our school. Those are usually students with difficult social background, with one or no parents. For the bazaar itself the
students prepared different types of food- cakes,biscuits, all kinds of pastry. Each class had its own stand where they were selling their products. Along with the food products our students made greeting cards, decorations and ornaments for the Christmas tree. The second volunteering event was organised during the
Activity 3: Slogan This task was performed by students from the 6th and the 7th grade under the guidance of their Art teacher Zornitsa Balkanska. They approached the task with great enthusiasm and turned out to be quite inventive. They produced several posters, depicting the concept of tolerance and volunteering. We have chosen four of them to upload. The students tend to associate the word tolerance with the idea of sharing
experience, mutual understanding, accepting the different. They were asked, at first, to think of words connected with tolerance- they picked words, such as, help, love, peace, patience, respect, equality, hope, understanding. The posters describe people from different nations, race or religion as the branches of a single tree, for example, or children from all over the world holding hands, embracing the globe.
Easter holidays. This was another bazaar, but this time the money raised were given to talented students from our school. It was carried out in the same spirit. Students prepared all types or products in connection with the Easter celebrations, such as creeting cards, Easter eggs, Easter bread, etc.
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Activity 4: Essays. This task was performed by students from different grades, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th – we wanted to see how students from different educational levels regard the idea of tolerance and volunteering- what is a tolerant behavior to them; do they think they are tolerant, can they give personal examples of tolerant attitude. All in all, they concluded that to be tolerant means to respect the right of other people to be different.
Activity 5: Street scene. For this activity we worked with students from the 8th grade. We asked the students to think first of what is an intolerant behavior or have they witnessed such attitudes on the street or at school. For them the typical experience of intolerance includes instances of bullying, calling names, mocking, and unfair treatment. They produced a script with the help of the Bulgarian teacher Rumyana Jordanova of a negative treatment. In the scene we
have the common victims of bullying- the one that studies hard and have excellent marks, and the one who is a little bit over-weight- or the so-called unpopular students. Our students found this activity very interesting and I think we reached our goal to raise awareness among them of the problems of the intolerant behavior.
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
Vocational school “prof.d-r Asen Zlatarov”
The logo and slogan
After being given the assignment for homework the students working on the project chose the best logo and slogan on volunteering. Some of them checked the Internet; others asked parents
and teachers for help and presented their ideas on the Connecting Classrooms Whiteboard. Then they voted and agreed on the following:
Tolerance and Volunteering During the school year 2011-2012 I voluntarily joined the initiative of essay writing on the project “Connecting classrooms” of the British council. I wrote an essay entitled “Tolerance and Volunteering” in English language. There I wrote about my opinion of Tolerance and Volunteering. I think that this essay is instructive and useful discuss our ideas and opinion with our friends from other
countries. This is the first step to connection with children of our age, because we are the future and it will develop as we want. These two words are very important for our characters and development. I hope that this project will really help as to make friends all over the world. Ina Iliyanova 10b class
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Work on the project During the school year 2011-2012 some students from 9th, 10th and 11th grades who volunteered to take part in the project “Connecting classrooms” of the British council wrote essays on the topic of tolerance and expressed their opinion in English language. They also wrote their own definitions of the word “volunteering” and had discussions in their English classes. There is a whiteboard with an exhibi-
tion of their ideas and a window with the presents and postcards from our Israeli and Italian partners. The students were happy to get cards with their Italian partners’ emails and write to them trying to contact them and get to know each other. Let’s hope that this project will really help them make friends connecting classrooms.
Help a friend On 17th February we celebrated our school's patron's day with a charity concert for collecting money for our student Greyam who suffers from muscular dystrophy and needs an operation in Brazil. That is a kind of volunteering in the community, speaking the universal language of arts. There were
songs, dances and other artistic performances that let students express their hope and desire to help a friend in need. We collected the amount of money he needed so now he is in Brazil and we all believe that he will be cured and come back to school to continue his studies.
English in the project Students who participated in the project “Connecting classrooms” of the British council used their knowledge of the English language they studied at school to write the essays on tolerance, their own definitions of the word “volunteering” and have discussions on the topic in their English classes. They also wrote emails to their Italian partners in response to the postcards they received from them. The
street scene allowed them to express their thoughts and feelings in very good English using correct pronunciation and having fun, of course. Mitanka Todorova – English teacher
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
International Partnership Meetings
Partnership Meeting 02-06 July 2011 Italy
Italian sketches When we say Italy, we think of
knowledge about our historical em-
and how best to save the environ-
a place, where historical monuments
blems and our way of saving these
ment.
can be seen everywhere we look. And
emblems, about national cuisines
Ten teachers and ten students from
on top of that, they look as if they were built not that much time ago. The goal of the project trip was to meet our Connecting Classrooms partners from Italy and to exchange
Vidin visited their partners in Sibio
Italy is a place where past and present live together in harmony and peace.
Connecting Classrooms International Partnership Meeting
22-23 November 2011 , BIRMINGHAM
Maria and Tihomir — Cluster1-Vidin students representatives at the meeting
and Dalmine and made presentations on different topics.
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International Youth Forum, 18—20 March 2012, Moskow
On March 2012, along with Ivan Tsenkov from Simeon The Great School were chosen to go at the project meeting in Russia.
We were welcomed with amazing hospitality and good spirit. At this meeting we participated in a lot of fun events. We played “ice-breaker” games, talked about leadership and teamwork skills, went on a little tour of Moscow and even danced a bit with our newfound friends from other countries. Of course, after all the games we sat down and discussed our proceedings with the project and made plans for the future. Finally we bid our farewells and went on our way back. The trip was a great ex-
perience and we were happy for the opportunity to visit our project partners and have fun . Persian Georgiev, 16 Vocational School
Ivan and Persian—Cluster 1 students representatives
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Connecting classrooms Vidin
June 2012 Mon
Tue
Wed
Schedule of Events 25 June, Cluster Meeting, Vidin
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
1
2
3
1700 – 1830 hours Skype link with Dimitrovgrad 5 min - Welcome and opening:Cluster coordinator 10 min - Next step and plans – British Council initiatives
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
10 min - Joint projects for this year: British Council
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Maintaining motivation & involvement - CC activity after the summer / academic year 12-13 and involvement & motivation of young leaders
25
26
27
28
29
30
Final year outputs 1: the research Final year outputs 2: the final conference
20 min - Communication: Telling our stories & internal & external promotion Newsletter – lead on the make up and circulation school web site edmodo MS report Skype link here with international contacts 20 min: Schools share experience of the recent activities 20 min: Tolerance activity – students present 3 min show / performance Feedback activity, Certificates 26 June 0900 – 1030 Action plan 2012 -13 – British Council and Vidin Cluster
We celebrate the success ... It was lovely to meet all students and teachers from the 5 schools in Vidin , Bulgaria Cluster 1 and celebrate the success of the project, looking back in year 2011-12. We all were very happy that the second year the project improved a lot, and students become more interested and more motivated. All planned joint curricular activities were completed – on tolerance, inclusion, volunteering and bullying. A good practice of a group work in the community was established through the project. There is great respond from the students. They accomplish the tasks with a lot
of creativity, enthusiasm and team work. The cluster will produce a Newsletter, where all the activities will be published and will be circulated to partners in the schools, education and business institutions. Silvia Kancheva from the Ministry of Education, who was also with us, made very kind compliments for the achieved results, saying that a lot of activities have been carried out in a very short time - all planned, implemented and presented by students. A lot of on-line communications (in edmodo) and many materials – essays, visual works, video clips and discussions, some of
them were performed at the meeting as well. As always the good work deserves recognition therefore, in September we will initiate the International School Award-a partnership between British Council Bulgaria and Ministry of Education, which will be presented by the Minister.
Krassimira Tantcheva Partnership Projects Manager British Council
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E-platforms: Edmodo Live@Edu eTwinning
Cluster 1 BULGARIA Schools: Tsar Simeon The Great School Foreign Language School Math school “Antim I”
Your business tag line here.
Art School “St.st. Kiril and Metodi” Vocational school “prof.d-r Asen
www.edmodo.org
June, 2012 Vidin
Zlatarov”
Newsletter team: Tsvetanka Todorova-ICT teacher Ivan , Monika and Krisi 9th grade from Tsar Simeon The Great School
Break down the old framework of teaching!