Poland - Heroes of our Lives

Our facility employs 38 teachers. The school has 249 students. These are gifted children and without talents. Most of the students are motivated to learn. Taught foreign languages are English (2 teachers) and German (2 teachers). At our school there are local students, as well as from several small nearby villages. There are some families in which one parent works abroad permanently. There are also some poor families. Most of the children are at a similar level of education. In some classes, however, there are discrepancies (children without talents whose parents are unable to help them to learn). Shortcomings are counteracted in countervailing classes. There are about 20 people in each class. Our school has several students with the rulings of disability (autism, Asperger's syndrome).These students are covered by a special care. Our school has experience in most areas covered by the project. This helps ensure that the project will run smoothly and objectives will be achieved. Our students know a lot about national heroes, but they are very eager to find about heroes from our partner schools. When it comes to information and communication technologies, one year ago our school started using 'Quizlet'. It is an application for learning foreign language vocabulary very fast. Our school is registered at eTwinning and has one ongoing project at the moment. The project 'We are green schools' is connected with ecology. In addition to this one of our teachers participated in an ICT course 'Technology Enhanced Learning' in St. Julian’s (Malta). During practical, hands-on sessions she worked with a wide range of freeware and online programmes and applications which you can be used to integrate technology into the classroom. The Web 2.0 tools can be a very good way to spread and disseminate the content connected with heroes. As a school we do a lot which is related to heroes: we conduct lectures thematically related to our national heroes (for example Janusz Korczak, Lech Wałęsa, Józef Piłsudski etc.), we prepare exhibitions in the classrooms and the hallways. We participate in many educational projects, like 'Bery i bojki sląskie' (Silesian fairy tales): Silesia is our region – among the residents of our commune Woźniki we search for information about fairy tales and legends in Silesian dialect, where often local heroes are mentioned. Another educational project we took part is 'In the world of fairy tales'. Students learned about – the concept of fairy tales, the origin, division, authors and heroes. The key people in the project are: Ewa Fabiańczyk, Sylwia Dróżdż and Ernest Pogoda. The selection of key people in the project was made on the basis of knowledge of English and other foreign languages, competence and skills, experience in international projects. In case, that the teachers leave their posts in the future, Katarzyna Zawadzka, Renata Duda and Krystyna Jaksik will take over their role.