Comenius Project
John Amos Comenius
1592-1670
At the beginning of this academic year, St. John’s embarked on an exciting two year project with four other European schools – Turkey, Iceland, Ireland and Germany. Known as the Comenius scheme, the venture is designed to promote links between all five countries and to encourage and foster awareness of each partner’s individual cultures and traditions – not forgetting the language, of course! Mrs. Sarll visited our link school in Weisloch, near Heidelberg, last October where she attended a variety of classes, gave a presentation about St. John’s and also read to many classes in Welsh (as well as writing Llanfair PG on many whiteboards!). The Schillergrundschule had hand-painted chairs on display, bearing the flags of each country and Wiesloch’s mayor agreed to ‘don’ the Welsh flag for a newspaper photograph – a big boost for Wales!
In January, St. John’s was delighted to host 20 visitors – both teachers and pupils – from all four partner countries. The visiting pupils from Germany and Turkey attended school here during the day and were hosted by St. John’s families. We are grateful to those for their support and for making their visitors feel so welcome. All pupils involved have maintained contact with one another, establishing firm friendships for the future.
During the January visit, a special Comenius concert was prepared, comprising recitations, musical items and plays. All of our guests were very impressed with the talent in St. John’s and all commented that we had ‘set the bar extremely high’ for future visits. Whilst our guests were here, we kept them well fed with Welsh cakes and cawl, as well as the traditional British fayre of ‘fish and chips’ which they all enjoyed enormously. In turn, our Icelandic partners handed out some of their own delicacies such as buried, rotting shark meat and dried fish – both sampled with some caution by our generally open-minded pupils and Daniel Mostyn (Year 10) elected to take home some of the dried fish for tea!
This June, there will be a trip to Ireland for a few members of staff and some of our Prep pupils, who will stay with families in Waterford. Our partner school teaches through the medium of Gaelic and has a champion Irish dancer amongst its pupils, so we are all looking forward to the visit very much. Our pupils will give a presentation on their experience to the whole school on their return (and may be able to tell us whether there really ARE fairies in Ireland, as the Irish teachers maintain!).
In the Autumn, there will be a trip to Iceland for some of our Senior pupils with a chance to bathe in the famous Blue Lagoon.
The theme of our joint project is ‘Respect: Think Globally, Act Locally’. Mrs. Sarll runs a Comenius Club every Monday lunchtime, and many of our pupils are involved in class activities based around the theme. Mrs. Hutton-Davies is currently devising (and perfecting!) several plays illustrating how to resolve conflicts within the family – and how to develop respect for all family members. As the prospect progresses, we will be looking at ways of respecting our community, the environment and the world at large. There will be a Comenius Day this summer to which we will welcome guests from outside St. John’s. If you have any ideas for this event, incorporating the cultures, traditions (even food) from our partner countires, then please let us know.
Mrs. Sarll is thrilled that we are part of this enriching European scheme:
“Our pupils and staff have already benefitted from the highly successful visit in January and are enthusiastic about plans for the coming year. It has been lovely to witness pupils’ enthusiasm for broadening their knowledge of our partner countries and for developing a genuine understanding of the need for respect in all areas of life. In our Comenius Club, we are currently working on a showcase DVD of St. John’s, which we will present to the other schools in the coming years. This is offering pupils the unexpected pleasure of developing their media skills, script writing, producing, directing, editing and presenting. Move over Ant and Dec!”
Mrs. Clint is delighted with the way the project is developing:
