Comenius and the Lifelong Learning Program
Since the beginning of the school year 2006/07 the Heiligenbergschule has been joining the “Lifelong Learning Program”.
Probably you read something about it in the media, your child will have told you about our project or the display in the lobby of our school has caught your attention.
About the program
The European Union has started a new educational program, the Lifelong Learning Program, January 1st, 2006.
This program will continue until 2013 and is budgeted with about 7 Billion Euros.
The program unites the previous European Educational Cooperation programs “Sokrates” and “Leonardo Da Vinci”, intending to profit by the experiences made.
The four pillars are the single programs COMENIUS (School education), ERASMUS (University education), LEONARDO DA VINCI (Vocational education) and GRUNDTVIG (Adult education).
The European Educational Cooperation started in 1995 among the at that time 15 member countries and the countries of the European Economic Area, Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. In the year 2000 the new members of the EU in Middle and Eastern Europe joined in, Turkey has been taken part since 2004.
Due to bilateral agreements there is the possibility for Switzerland, Croatia, Macedonia and the other western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldavia, Montenegro and Serbia) to join in at run time of the program.
About the aims
The Program for Lifelong Learning contributes to social cooperation. It reinforces creativity, occupational abilities and the development of entrepreneurial spirit.
The program allows people of all age groups, without reference to their origin to take part and enhances language diversity and language studies in Europe.
It supports tolerance and respect for other people and cultures. Besides it facilitates the exchange of pedagogical approaches and helps securing the quality of general and vocational education.
About our project partners
The partaking countries in the COMENIUS project are France and Finland.The French school Jules Vernes is located in La Jarrier near La Rochelle. It is a suburban primary school with about 200 students.
Kuorevesi School in Jämsä is in Central Finland. Since Finish students spend 9 school years together, this rural school is a combined primary and secondary school with about 250 students.
About our subject
I – YOU – WE; reaching out - working together
The first project year has the motto “I – I introduce myself”.
The students present their school, the subjects, electives and clubs, the course of their day, their holidays and special activities around school by written texts, pictures, photos and videos. The work of the students is being published in an own web site.
The second project year has the motto “YOU – I learn something about you”. During this year each school compiles recipes, songs and games typical for the respective country. Our students will apply and test the typical features and specialties of our French and Finnish partner schools during a subsequent intercultural project week.
The third project year has the motto “WE – We work together on a subject”.
A book as a common product will travel through the countries and will be completed step-by-step.
For example the story will be started in Germany, followed up in France and finished in Finland.
The progress made will continuously be documented on movable walls in the school lobby and everybody is welcome to spend some time there and catch up with the development of the project.