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The Comenius Program is funded by the European Union to bring teachers and pupils closer together. The theme of our particular project is "My Place In Society" - predominantly Citizenship, but also involving other areas of study.  Teachers from DCPS have visited all our partner schools, in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic and Turkey.  Sadly, Turkey could only participate for the first two years.  The purpose of these meetings is to allow teachers to share ideas, experience life in other schools, develop the project and explore the locality. 

VISIT TO GERMANY  October 2007

In October, eight Year 7 pupils and six teachers visited our partner school in Zwickau, S.E. Germany.  They were joined there by pupils and teachers from Prague and Poznan (Poland).  Their hosts looked after them very well, with some time in school and some spent absorbing local culture.  They visited a motor museum on the site of the old Trabant Factory, and the children visited the Haribo sweets factory, where they made large purchases!  They also visited Dresden on Remembrance Day, after a two-hour train journey through heavy snow.  The children were excellent representatives of DCPS and had a thoroughly good time staying with their host families.  In the following week, fifteen students and two teachers visited us from Prague, staying with families, to whom we are most grateful.  The Chamber Choir visited their school in the Spring, so we are glad to return the favour.  They will be in school or visiting local attractions, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

VISIT TO TURKEY  June 2007

Extracts from DCPS Staff Reports on their visit:

It was a really good opportunity to meet colleagues from other parts of the school.    This is something which we would like to see more of and  this was a great way of helping to make our school one joint community.

Also it was good to have the chance to meet teachers from other countries and to share their educational experiences.  

We enjoyed visiting the school in Malatya.   Good to see that the children are being encouraged to learn English and were very keen to practise.   It was nice that we could be there to help them.

All could at least ask a simple question in English. Some were very impressive and had simply absorbed their class text book having never been to England and nor had their parents. One clever boy managed to ask: ‘So what are we going to do about global warming?' They really tried to communicate meaningfully and I tried to make the most of the little Turkish I had learnt. It was interesting, being a Language teacher, to be in the situation where I had to struggle to communicate. It emphasised the necessity to make sure an early learner at least knows the important basic vocabulary and not necessarily the grammar. A few words were similar to the French.

Even though it was not the age group I teach it was interesting to go into the classrooms and mix with the pupils. They all said their favourite subject was Maths perhaps because it is the same word in Turkish!

At break time lovely to see the class teacher actually playing with his class

Their attention to detail and cleanliness when serving food was remarkable.

It was strange for us not to be offered any alcohol. Drinks were soft or water.

The end of year class 2 show was most impressive for children of that age. Although we could not understand, we could see how confident they were on stage with their microphones when they did their sketches. I enjoyed the music and dance particularly. The PE was good too

The evening which we spent with the Turkish family was very special and a great way to become involved in their culture.

We were overwhelmed by the reception from our Turkish friends and their hospitality could not be faulted.

There were a lot of conferences when the media was involved which was very good PR for the project

HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE

All 5 schools took part in this, and swapped results.  There is too much detail to go into here, but we found there were far more similarities than differences.  The school we felt we were most similar too was in Malatya, Turkey.

N Ford
Head of ICT
DCPS Kent