Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 6 2016 | Page 40
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------of each others’ decorations and posted pictures of
the finished work on the Twinspace:
https://twinspace.etwinning.net/11792/home
We included a link to the Twinspace on our school
website so that pupils could make the decorations
at home during the school Christmas holidays.
Our whole school took part in the project, with
pupils ranging in age from 5 to 11 years. Towards
the end of term, we held a video call with Germany
and Poland. Our Year 6 pupils (aged 10-11 years)
played their violins, having been inspired by our call
the year before with our German partners who had
all played an instrument. Pupils also showed each
other the decorations they had made from the
shared instructions.
eTwinning and Erasmus+ Ambassador in Germany,
who talked us through the application and
answered our questions. We also used the
wonderful videos uploaded by the UK National
Agency on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZuMJemHHU&list=PLq24jCC8AsjHJnayn6T7JI5Gsn75BWMZB&
index=7
Other schools also held video calls with their
partners. Pupils exchanged letters and Christmas
cards, as well as information about Christmas
customs.
At the end of the project, pupils reflected on what
they had learned and enjoyed. Teachers also
reflected on the project.
An ebook was compiled by the Spanish students, as
a lasting outcome (and very useful resource!):
https://www.joomag.com/en/newsstand/crafts-ebook/0786734001459800572?ref=ib
The project for mentoring teachers
In my local cluster of schools in England, I used the
project to train colleagues in the use of eTwinning,
and to help them to find partners for future
Erasmus+ projects and job-shadowing visits. We
held a number of training sessions through the
autumn term 2015. Teachers were supported in
this by being released by their head teachers in
school time to attend the meetings. A number of
eTwinning tools were used, including the videoconferencing tool.
We had intended to use the project for participants
to find a partner school in France, as most of our
schools teach French to children aged 7-11. We
were not successful in finding partners in France for
everyone – but we were delighted to find some
great partners in other countries!
We used the project as a springboard to apply for
Erasmus+ funding for staff training job-shadowing
visits. At Steeton School, we had already some
experience of the application process, having
successfully applied in 2015 for Erasmus+ funding.
At one of our meetings, we held a video webinar
with one of our project partners, who is an
We included a page on our Twinspace with Top Tips
about Erasmus+ applications, which we updated as
we went along and has been made public:
https://twinspace.etwinning.net/11792/pages/page
/70526
Four schools in the cluster applied for Erasmus+
project funding for job–shadowing visits and all four
were successful!
The success of the project was acknowledged with a
prize for ‘Mentoring’ at the UK national conference
in June 2016 and the assessor commented:
"This is an exceptionally well planned and
structured cross curricular eTwinning project
specifically designed to engage students but equally
to support staff and schools into the eTwinning
programme. The focus is simple yet achieves it
goals elegantly and the evidence from the well laid
out Twinspace does show full and active
engagement by all the participants. The comments
and engagement of the students from all the
schools clearly demonstrate enjoyment, motivation
and active learning including creating instructions
and instructional videos for their peers. This very
precise and structured project has within it the
opportunity to be creative, collaborative and to
have student voice and engagement at its heart.
The opportunity for partners who have built trust
and relationships to then move through to
Erasmus+ should contribute well to success going
forward."
40