Comenius Project 2009/2010 “Regionalism in Europe”

The last week of April was a buzzing European week at St Chad’s, as we welcomed our three partner schools to celebrate the end of a common European project entitled “Regionalism in Europe”.

This is the second time that we have run a European project with our partner schools thanks to a generous European Comenius grant given to us by the British Council. This grant enabled us to send ten students to our partner school in Brittany last year and it helped us meet the costs of hosting our partners in April.

For the last two years sixth formers from St Chad’s and pupils from the German, Polish and French schools had been doing research work and study visits to various sites in their regions with a view to present their region to their European partners.

Their studies concentrated on geographical and historical aspects of their regions.
St Chad’s students decided to do a presentation about Liverpool in which they showed the positive as well as the negative aspects of the city.
They talked about the music scene and the European city of culture as well as the slave trade and ship industry. They presented parts of their presentation in French.
Please see our students’ and partners’ presentations under the Comenius link.
Also feel free to have a look at the schools’ websites.

Last spring the French school hosted all the partner schools and this year it was the turn of St Chad’s to act as a host.
We therefore welcomed around 50 foreign students and organised a programme of lesson observations, visits and entertainment.
18 French students stayed with their French exchange partners in Runcorn and the  Comenius students stayed at the Peace centre in Warrington. The British partners organised various outings for their French partners in the evenings and some teachers from St Chad’s took the Comenius students bowling.

St Chad’s teachers taught special lessons for our guests in science, Chinese, history and religious education. There were also opportunities for pupils to shadow students to their form period and various lessons. We took pupils on day trips to Chester, Liverpool, Portmeirion and Llandudno to give them a taste of the North West.

The foreign students were particularly impressed by our students’ uniforms, which the French found very “chic”. In France, Germany and Poland students wear their own clothes at school.  The foreign students and teachers praised the colourful displays around school, the new buildings and the friendliness of our students, who did not shy away from greeting them in various languages.

St Chad’s students were quick at exchanging e-mail addresses with the European pupils and at adding each others’ details on Face book.

The visit from our foreign partners triggered a lot of curiosity in our students and contributed to help fight stereotypes. We hope that there will be more opportunities in the future for our students to take part in such exciting international projects to broaden their horizon.