Comenius News

							Dear Parent/Carer,
I am delighted to be able to inform you that we have received funding from The
British Council to participate in a Comenius project over the next two academic
sessions. (2011-12 & 2012-13)

About Comenius
“We are all citizens of one world”
The Comenius Programme is named after Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670), often
considered the father of modern education. Comenius is aimed at schools, colleges
and local authorities across Europe.
Comenius has two main objectives:
    to develop knowledge and understanding among young people and education
      staff of the diversity of European cultures and languages, and the value of
      this diversity.
    to help young people to acquire basic life skills and competences for their
      personal development, for future employment and for active European
      citizenship.

       For further information on Comenius please refer to:
       http://www.britishcouncil.org/comenius.htm



Curriculum for Excellence specifically refers to young people “developing a knowledge
and understanding of the world and Scotland’s place in it”. International
Education/Global Citizenship can play a meaningful role in achieving all of the four
capacities. Our history, culture and heritage provide contexts for young people to
explore their identity and engage with other cultures.

       For further information on Curriculum for Excellence and in particular Global
       Citizenship please refer to Learning Teaching Scotland website and in
       particular:
       http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learningteachingandassessment/learningacrossth
       ecurriculum/themesacrosslearning/globalcitizenship/index.asp
About our project:
We will be working on a project called Tales And Legends are On the Way.
(TALAOW).
This project will provide the opportunity for all the participants (students,
teachers, parents) to learn about the similarities and common values that we
have as members of the European family. Through communication
(electronically and face to face), we will find common ways to realise that,
not only keeping our national traditions is very important, but will allow us to
learn about and communicate with foreign cultures. Learning about our
national and cultural identity will make us understand and communicate better
with the rest of the world. If we don’t know our traditions, we cannot offer
anything to the other cultures which are different from ours.
We have partner schools from the following countries: Italy, Iceland,
Finland, Holland, Ireland, France, Portugal and Spain. We will be learning
more about our heritage and culture through Glasgow’s Culture, Scottish
Authors and Legends and Celtic Myths and then sharing our findings with our
partner schools whilst learning about the culture, tales and legends in our
partner countries.

The children will be participating in a number of activities over the next two
sessions related to our Comenius Project. Please get involved with your child’s
learning by looking at Scotland’s history and introducing them to our partner
countries and talking to your children about what they are doing about the
project in school.
Our first task is a Homework Task!
I have supplied a copy of the Glasgow Coat of Arms. Please talk to your child
about the Glasgow Coat of Arms, what it means and the significance of the
symbols. This can be researched on the internet, in the library or at many
of the museums in Glasgow (and remember most of our Glasgow museums are
free to enter).

Then…can your child take our project title-Tales And Legends Are On the
Way (TALAOW) along with the names of our project countries: Scotland,
Finland, Iceland, Holland, France, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Italy and
design a Coat of Arms which represents our project.

Your child can use whatever type of pens, pencils, paints or materials they
wish and all completed Coat of Arms will be displayed in the school. You will
see much of the work from our project displayed around the school in the
coming months and the results from our Homework Task will be part of our
displays.

Completed Homework Tasks should be given to your child’s class teacher
before Wednesday 5th October 2011.

With Thanks,



Shona Sinnott