European week was very good. Nice students. Well motivated. They produced a game “Game of Goose” on a wall in the school based on the life of Comenius. There was also useful work and a debate on globalisation.  The activities for the breaking down of stereotypes and similarities/differences went well. The magazine was produced and was sent to all countries.  Work on this involved many classes and students.  Parts of it are also presented on the web. Trip to the Royal City of Bourges (Palais Jacques Coeur and the Cathedral). Numerous other productions relating to cultural similarities and differences.
There was a lot of activity in the hunt for the Chinese bell.  45 messages were exchanged in total, 11 from France, one from China, 2 from the Netherlands, 13 from England, 10 from Germany and 8 from Romania.  The languages used to compose the messages were: English – 21,  German – 18 and one from each of the following: Spanish, Ukranian, and Tamil.
The Maths work was also a success.

There had not been quite as much involvement this year because the application to be a full partner had been refused by the national agency.  Despite this Biecz had hosted students from each other country, this had been a success. The major end product of European Week in Biecz was a play – a modern version of Cinderella. There were also debates (globalisation) and presentations about the partner schools. These are always useful to inform the next generation of school pupils. The Maths contest also worked well.
Biecz will be the co-ordinating school in the next 3 year Comenius project as long as its application is accepted.  There is some doubt about this at the moment, but perhaps it is an advantage to be a co-ordinating school since this makes the proposal different to before.

The delegates to European week quickly became an homogenous group.  The students currently staying in Rendsburg are working on some aspects of the project during this meeting.  As for other activities, these have mainly been organised by teachers who are not at this conference so Jari was unable to go into more details.

European week was a success once again. The debate on Globalisation involved the 12^th years in Ploiesti as well as the visiting delegates. The results are in the Comenius magazine and on the website. The delegates found out about Romanian history and culture by means of a visits during the week. These were enjoyed by all. Members of the student group made strong links between one another. They are keeping in touch and several are visiting one another in the coming summer.  Not only students but families of  students and hosts have been in contact with one another. Analysis of customs and traditions was presented on the website. The 2^nd Comenius magazine includes impressions from European Week. Doina had been asked to teach other teachers, headteachers and school inspectors from the Prahova district how to apply successfully for and run Comenius projects.  For this she has given up many of her Saturday mornings.   One result has been that so many schools from Prahova have applied that it may mean that applications may be rationed and thus more difficult to succeed with for Ploiesti in the next project. Or each successful applicant will receive insufficient money to cover its costs.  However, this invitation is a sign that our project is seen as an example of ‘best practice’.
A maths student from Ploiesti achieved second prize in a competition about websites relating to his work on the Comenius maths sub-project.   People who used the site rated it as being very useful.

European week had been a success.  The pupils who had gone abroad all gave presentations to each other, and to those who hosted in the UK, and to their parents, as part of a follow-up exercise after European Week.  For recent work on globalisation and maths see the website. The system of linking the school website and the TLN pages was a bit unwieldy to operate, but it works.

It turned out that in addition to Doina’s experience of being asked to present her experiences to others, similar things had happened with Veronique Bouchard in France,   Aleksandra Kawa in Poland, David Leckey in England and Andreas Borrmann in Germany.  It is very likely that  parts of the advice in the booklet on how to run successful projects will be included in information given out in future by National Agencies.  It is available in each of the six languages.  Catherine suggested that more examples of good practice were included in it as well as the limited number at the back.  An idea was developed that Andreas would send it in electronic form (and / or put it on the website) and then each school could add in web addresses to parts of the booklet in our own mother tongue at appropriate points, then email the updated version to Andreas by the end of May.  He will then put all the revised pieces together and disseminate them.

It is important to keep the old web pages and sites up and running even during the next few years since national agencies and schools forming partnerships will want to look at them as examples of good practice.  Teachers who have to give talks on this to other schools may want to demonstrate these pages, so don’t delete the pages associated with the old Comenius project when we start the new project!

Provisional plans for the next project

Biecz will know by 10^th May if they have been succeeded in the first stage of the selection process as a partner by their national agency. Lancaster and Rendsburg have been accepted by their national agencies. The other countries will not all know until July . . . . and then the EU Commission must authenticate the whole project.  After some discussion provisional dates for a planning conference in Biecz were agreed as being 16^th-20^th October 2004.

Kristiina (Currently in Biecz with another Comenius project) thinks that if the Polish application does not succeed then the whole project fails.  But it is difficult to be sure. The delegate from the German national agency suggests that a new co-ordinating school can be chosen from those schools which are accepted.

Practicalities