Post on 29-Jun-2015
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Comenius Visit to Spain November 2011
Melody Valois, Lauren McCann and Freda Eyden
In which parts of Europe do our Comenius partners live?
Santander Spain
Liepaja, Latvia
Antalya, Turkey
How did we get to Santander?
First, we flew to Bilbao, a city in northern Spain
We were met by teachers from our Spanish partner school, who drove us
from Bilbao to Santander
Our partner school in Spain is called Colegio San Juan Bautista – La Salle
This is John Baptist de la Salle. He set up the first La Salle Institute in France in the 17th
Century.
There are now La Salle schools in 85 countries throughout the world.
• John Baptist de la Salle set up his first school to help the children of the poor to learn simple reading, writing and arithmetic. They were also taught Christianity.
• During his lifetime and beyond, his model of schools for the poor spread from France to many other countries.
• Their teachers were, and still are, called ‘brothers’, even though women have played a major part for many years.
The school is in a small village about 1 hour’s train ride from Santander
Here we are on the morning of day one, arriving at Los Corrales de Buelna to visit the school for
the first time.
What a surprise! We didn’t expect to see lots of little cats in the school grounds!
We were made to feel very welcome
The Headmaster and the local Mayor greeted us at our first meeting
The Mayor of Los Corrales
The Headmaster making a speech in English
We all exchanged presents and flags!
Miss McCann loved the Turkish sweets!
Then it was time to get down to business!
During our three days together, we talked about…
• The education system in each country• Special features of the culture in each country• Projects we could work on together• How we would stay in touch with each other• Setting targets and dates• Future visits to the other three countries
Each day we walked through the village to a small restaurant for lunch
Here’s what we saw on the way…
The food was lovely – what would you choose?
We went for a short walk around Los Corrales. Here’s what it looks like…
This part of the school is in a different part of the village
Here are some of the youngest pupils learning English – they were very good!
Here are some of the older Primary children. Have you noticed that they don’t
wear school uniform?
They have the same rules as we do!
The school is bright and cheerful
Does this remind you of anywhere?
Here are some of the pupils’ drawings for the Comenius project …
Everywhere there are signs in three languages; Spanish, English and French
The LibraryThe Headteacher’s
Office
We thought we could copy this idea and have signs in English, Spanish, Turkish and Latvian in all of our
‘Cultural Jigsaw’ schools.
On St Cecilia’s Day, we were invited to a special music assembly
The children had prepared some words and a famous
local musician sang and played lots of musical
instruments
We visited the older pupils in the Secondary school.
They learn how to work with electricity…
… and how to repair cars!
On the last morning of our visit, we gave our Spanish friends a present and a special card to
thank them for their kind hospitality
Here is a picture of the whole team
Here’s looking forward to making more friends on the next trip – to Turkey!
We were each given a special ‘Cultural Jigsaw’ certificate
Before we left Santander, we had a quick look at the town. Here’s what we saw…
Our last day…
Hasta la vista!