Final event in Scotland

Two representatives from our school, David and Aina, went to Glasgow in June 2013 for the final event there. This is what they read to summarise what we have been doing. And these are some of the pictures they took.

We’re two of the many students that have been involved in Connecting Classrooms for the last three years. At the beginning we were told that this project dealt with fighting social exclusion and, to tell you the truth, we were quite lost. Now it makes sense to us and we are more aware of the community and the reality that surrounds us.

In our first year, we started having some training meetings in Alella with students from the other Catalan schools. We played games to get to know each other and we talked about social isolation. We liked sharing a project with our neighbour schools and meeting new friends.

We also sent some students' profiles and Christmas cards and some gifts to our partners in Scotland, Bosnia and Poland.

We recorded a video of the school and we explored the similarities and differences between our environments, homes and schools through the view from our windows. Biel, won the first prize of the photograph competition. (This is the photo.)

In the second year, we also did training sessions in Alella with our neighbour schools and Irene, another classmate, was chosen to represent our school  to go to Glasgow.

Since then, we have been going to one old people' s home in our town and we have done several things with and for them, from singing to playing dominoes not only with them but also with some  little kids with risk at social exclusion. We wrote some messages together and we blew up a hundred balloons, each of them containing a message. This activity was related to the “Marathon against poverty” organised by TV3.

This year we have been dealing with the hindrances that disabled people come up with and the loneliness and other difficulties that the elderly endure. The starting point was a lecture given by Raquel Soto, a woman that suffers from cerebral palsy. She is a very active and funny woman and from then on we have never seen people in wheelchairs the same way. She complained that there were not only physical barriers but also psychological ones and she was right. And her testimony helped us a lot.

Neil Harbisson also came to give us a lecture, He is an interesting guy who cannot see colours and thanks to an electronic eye he listens to colors. It was a superb speech and we loved it.

And our community of old people are helping us to detect the architectonic barriers that they have to face in their daily life. We hope that with the diagnose that we' ve done on the town, the authorities will do something to avoid the obstacles they meet.

And last, but not least. We want to thank the British Council for giving us the chance to visit the Scottish Schools, We loved them, our teachers also loved them and took many ideas from there that want to carry out. It was a rewarding experience that we will always remember.

Our Scottish partners visit our school

On the 29th May a Scottish delegation integrated by students and teachers from five high schools in  Glasgow as well as Leslie Atkins, a representative of the International Education Office from the city of Glasgow visited us here in Premià de Dalt.
It was really a pleasure to welcome them and show them around, after having worked together in the Connecting Classrooms internetional project.
You can see a sample of what it was all about here: Our Scottish partners visit us

Today we are glad to welcome you to Valerià Pujol i Bosch Secondary School.

It’s been a quite long walk up from the train station. We’re sorry about that but, once up here, the views are stunning, aren’t they? 

Your visit is part of the project that has been carried out for three years and that is about to end. In fact, yesterday there was the final event in El Masnou, which we hope you enjoyed.

Before you go back to Scotland, we would like you to get to know a little bit more about us and our school. The Catalan students that have paid you visits during these years got a great impression of the Scottish schools. So, we would like to show you around the school and let you know the school facilities and what we do here. As you will see, there’ s no swimming pool in our school,.(we were impressed when we saw yours) but  we don’ t enjoy Scottish weather.

Before that, we want to offer you an iconic masterpiece of the Catalan music by Pau Casals played by one of our students. So, let’s listen to El Cant dels Ocells.

Some words to welcome them

Our students sang and played the cello for them

We got some presents from the Scottish partners

The Scottish delegation

Enjoying our weather and the views from our school

Lunch at the school canteen

Connecting Classrooms Final Event

Some representatives from our high school has taken part in the final event of the Connecting Classrooms project. It has been organized by the British Council in collaboration with El Masnou Town Council. Some students from the area schools as well as a group of Scottish students and teachers have talked about what they have done during these three years and what the project has meant for them. Two fourth ESO students prepared a power point presentation and summarised in a few words all the activities we have been carrying out during this period. They received a scroll that certifies that we have participated in the project. We have also enjoyed a theatre play named Aquarius by the Firewalk Theatre Company.
You can look at some pictures and videos from the event here:  Connecting Classrooms Final Event

Our students' presentation

We received a scroll that certifies our participation in the project

Our smart representatives

Watching the theatre play

Looking for architectonic hindrances

The final outcome of this year's project was the map of Premià de Dalt that you can see below which highlights the architectonic barriers that elderly people can find on their way around Premià de Mar. The map was taken to the Town Council so that they could take it into account and improve our town.

They were spotted while we took some elderly people from the Elderly People's Home for a walk. Some of them were on wheelchairs or medical walkers so we could check how difficult it is sometimes for them to move around the town. 

Look at the pictures below and you will see some examples of problems we came across during our walk from the Elderly People's Home to the cafeteria where we took them to have something to drink, chat and spend a while together. Young and old really had a good time sharing experiences and anecdotes.

A map of Premià de Mar with the architectonic hindrances our students detected

The group of elderly people. students and teachers before our walk

People on wheelchairs came across some problems 

People on medical walkers had problems too

Helping hands

A walk hand in hand

Loved to help

Extra help needed

Nacho showing us how to use the wheelchair

An example of an architectonic hindrance

We loved to help

Enjoying each other's company

Having coffee together

Having fun

A men's talk

Coffees and cokes

Our way back home

Scottish air in our school

After being twinned with Glasgow we were really looking forward to having a Scottish experience at home. This is why we got in touch with David Vivanco, a scotsman who took a piece of his homeland to our school. He played a bagpipe, he sang some beautiful traditional Scottish songs and the funniest thing of all, he taught us how to dance some Céilidh dances.

If you want to see how well we managed to do it, have a look at this link: Un tast d'Escòcia a l'INS Valerià Pujol i Bosch

Raquel Soto suffers from cerebral palsy

Raquel is a funny brilliant girl who made us laugh a lot telling us lots of anecdotes in her daily life. After being with her, our students chaged the way they look at handicapped people completely. She faces life with real optimism and lives a normal life with her partner and son. She is always helping people and she is involved in many organizations that support people with physical problems. She has also collaborated with the famous singer Macaco and here you have the link where you can see her playing a part in the song "Mensajes del agua".

http://youtu.be/JPWFtapYOXQ

Neil Harbisson suffers from acromatopsia

To make students aware of the physical problems that some people have to live with, we organized a series of talks by different people.
Our first visitor was Neil Harbisson, who was born with an illness called acromatopsia which unables him from seeing colours. So, instead of seeing them, he listens to them. How? He has got an electronic eye that turns colour into sound through vibrations sent to his brain using bone conduction. Because of this, he likes being called a cyborg.
Through funny anecdotes he changed the way students thought his life is like. For example, he can listen to a Miro's picture and he can paint a Lady Gaga's song. He showed us how some famous people's faces sounded and how Prince Charles sounded much like Nicole Kidman because both had blue torquoise eyes and very red lips.
We strongly recommend you to watch his lecture at TED because we enjoyed it very much and our students from 1st and 2nd year of Batxillerat thought that it had been awesome.
Have a look at the pictures we took during his stay among us.