Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2017 Newsletter------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our work in the timetable included the deepening of the national school systems and the exchange of good practices related to the national school institutions, observing the new teaching methodologies and the school organization.
The Schwanthalerschule is located in the centre of Frankfurt in a nice neighbourhood. This is a Hauptschule, from Classes 5 to 9, which prepares students mainly for manual work with two classes of Realschule( class 10), attended by those who will conduct an apprenticeship in the economic field. The age of the boys is between 12 and 17 years.
The peculiarity of this school is the presence of 90 % of non-German pupils from different countries, with a high percentage of migrants and some refugees predominantly from Kurdistan and Afghanistan. There are in fact in the school pupils of more than 30 nationalities and also the teachers are of different origin. The school thus activates projects aimed at integrating pupils and learning German. They work in the school three social workers who daily attend the pupils and to which the latter can address at any time of the day. There are weekly workshops of kitchen and carpentry, with the participation of representatives of the world of work and volunteers, and sports activities. The
My workshop on the eTwinning Platform, with which all teams have been able to experience TwinSpace, and the know-how needed to involve students when returning to their respective countries, was important. TwinSpace of the project was then officially presented at a press conference to local and national journalists.
The school day is organized in this way: there are 20 minutes break every 90 minutes of lesson. There are no janitors. The school is cleaned by a private cleaning company. The bell is not there, the end of the lessons is signalled by a flashing light. News, information, alerts and so on are spread across a loudspeaker in all classes and is not common. The headmaster arrives at school at 6.40 am, before all, to arrange the timetable according to any teacher’ s substitutions to be made. The teachers arrive at 7.30, the entry to school is at 8. There are no questions but a lively participation in the lesson of all students who are constantly engaged by the teacher who never sits in the chair. There is no religion but ethical teaching and there are obviously no religious symbols in the classrooms. Books are provided free of charge by the state and then returned when they no longer serve. If students ruin the books they has to pay them.
Municipality of Frankfurt is very present and economically supports school projects. The business world, being the dual system in Germany, is actively involved with lessons and workshops.
During our stay we did job shadowing and we were able to compare our teaching methodologies. It was a very positive experience for us, thanks to which we were able to share moments of work, relaxation and exchanges of views with other foreign colleagues, and with whom we entered into a life of a scholastic reality so different from ours as for the student audience. In fact, pupils attending school have almost all the special educational needs. Teachers therefore operate by putting the individual students at their core with their peculiarities. The student becomes the protagonist of his learning through active engagement. Learning becomes meaningful and cooperative. Students interact with each other and with the teacher, work in pairs, group, individually, share ideas and concepts, seek new data, make decisions on the results of their choices and present results to the entire class, perform practical activities. Laboratory and project teaching is carried out.
The pupils led us to visit the school building, interacted with us and asked questions, prepared for us a multiethnic lunch and shared some school activities with us.
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