School Name – Saints and Scholars Integrated Primary School, Armagh, Northern Ireland

Teacher – Christelle Bernard

Project Name – Magic Christmas Trees and Wishes

Twinned With – Zespół Szkół nr 2 w Czerwionce - Leszczynach (Poland) and Scoala CU Clasele I-VIII nr. 3 "Ioan Boldescu" - Giurgiu (Romania)

Project Description

The schools decided to look at the difference and similarities between Christmas festivities in different countries, preparing paintings and drawings of traditional Christmas Trees and cards with traditional Christmas wishes, and adding some presentations and photos of Christmas in their country.

Use of ICT within the project

In ICT class each school prepared messages and used digital cameras to record progress. Students prepared Powerpoint presentations about how they celebrate Christmas, firstly by taking photos of school decorations and later adding all of them to the Powerepoint presentation. Google earth was also used to help each school locate the other.

Curricular integration

The ethos is based upon respect of differences and celebration of them and the schools covered many subjects: In the world around us they located the various countries associated with the project on maps. In ICT: they created Powerpoint presentations and used digital cameras to record progress. They also word processed opinions on cards received. In Art they carefully observed the work their partners sent and created their own interpretation using different textures and materials. In PDMU they talked about the various education systems and explored the advantages and disadvantages. A large  wall display of the work in the main entrance was displayed to the school. This developed a sense of sharing, the joy of receiving new work and appreciating others’ work and effort.

European Dimension

The idea was for the students to see the differences and similarities between Christmas trees in different countries. And they could all exchange the pictures with wishes so as each involved school could get it. The results show students finishing the project knowing about other Christmas traditions from various other countries; Furthermore it has enabled students to include foreign national students and their families better in the school community as they saw their countries represented in a major display at the front of the school. All students had an opportunity to develop a sense of pride and respect toward other traditions and it made Europe a more real concept, especially for those students who have never travelled abroad.

Overall Quality

It was a relatively short project (two month) impossible to do without a very close collaboration. Collaboration was great and all partners were highly involved. The Twinforum was used as the main point of communication. Everyday there was something new to show to our students, so they were highly motivated and keen to provide feedback which was when they decided to create a word document entitled “our favourite card” which changed nearly every day. Students prepared works to send, also envelopes with school addresses, learning the importance of accurate copying and enabling pupils to relate better to the difficulties some of our foreign national pupils may experience by discovering how many Z there are in Polish to name only one language.