Newsletter Italy

Newsletter 2

Exchange with Italy

 

From the 25th till the 30th of May the exchange with Italy took place.

All countries were represented by their students. Turkey brought 9, so did Holland, Northern Ireland brought 6, as did Poland and Portugal. Together with the teachers we were a group of 50, so a large group for Italy to accomodate. All students stayed with host famillies except for the children from Northern-Ireland who stayed in the hotel with their teachers because of their young age. But they did a very good job.

Our collegues from Italy made a nice programme for us, including 2 days in Rome. Also there was enough time to get to know each other and to work on our joint project litterature.

The goal of our project is to learn how to interact and to share emotions through the medium of creative subjects as art, literature, dance, theater, sports and music. Also because all countries care a lot for the environment we included this theme as well.

Italy was in charge of the theme literature. Every country made their contribution by working on this theme in their own countries. We all shared our products so we could learn about each others’ cultures.

In Italy we made a final project for literature as you can see in the newsletter on thursday.

All in all it was a lovely, educatif, wonderfull week we spent togheter. We are all looking forward to the next meeting in october which will be in Poland.

Day 1:  Monday 26th May 2014

 

Our First Day in Montecompatri We awoke to a warm, sunny morning and got our first glimpses of the picturesque little mountain-top town of Montecompatri. The views of the surrounding countryside and hillside houses were breath-taking in the morning sunlight. Following breakfast we were met by our Italian hosts, for the week, and set off on the short walk to the school where we were met by the students of the Secondary school who greeted us with balloons and the flags of each of our countries. After a short time at the school we made our way to the Town Hall and were introduced to the Mayor. He welcomed us to Montecompatri and told us how pleased he was to have us visit their town and how important it was that we all worked together to create and better and peaceful Europe. Each of the countries was presented with a gift by the mayor and many returned the compliment with a gift of their own. We had brought a plaque with our city’s crest on it. It had been given to us by the Mayor of our town to present to the mayor of Montecompatri.

When we left the Town Hall we were treated to a walking tour of the town with a local historian as our guide. We were taken through the steep, narrow streets to view the historic buildings and stunning views. As we made our way to the highest part of the town we were able to see the great city of Rome sprawled below in the distance. We climbed to the highest part of the town and visited the old Church that was first constructed in the Fourteenth Century. There was quite a contrast between the front  and rear of the church as the rear had been constructed in the fourteenth century and the front was added during the eighteenth century.   This picture above is of the early build of the church which is fairly simple in its construction; below is the later front part of the church which, as you can see, is much more ornate. We returned to the school for lunch and rounded of the first day of our visit with an impromptu birthday celebration for one of the Portuguese students!!!

 

29^th May – Thursday by Poland

It was the day of our meeting with students from our partner's schools. Irish, Dutch and a part of Portugese students were invited to spend morning hours in primary and secondary school Montecompatri. Turkish, Polish and 2 of Portugese students were invited to primary school Laghetto. They spent there time playing and having fun with Italian students and teachers.

At 12:45 all students and teachers were taken by bus to school in Laghtetto. We were warmly welcomed by Italians.

                                                                                                       

After lunch students were invited to work in groups for Literature theme about proverbs. They had to present national proverbs written in native language and English  on a large letter of plywood that formed the word “EUROPE”. All works were painted in national colours of the countries. Students worked really hard but it was a great fun for everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at our final product. Everybody wanted to take photos with us!

 

After hard work we had great fun playing sport games at school yard, talking to students and parents and.... resting. The weather was like a dream.

 

 

 

 

Students from 6 countries joined in one group dancing Italian dance “tarantella”.

 At 18:00 we got Certificates of Participations. Each school was honoured by getting Medal from Italian Senate (Senato della Repubblica ). It was moving moment.

In the evening Italian parents offered us Buffet Dinner in the courtyard of the school. It was unforgetable day.

                                   GRAZIE ITALIA!

 

 

 

 

27th May, by Portugal

The sun was shining on that glorious day of May 27th. We travelled to Rome by bus and we had to face some heavy traffic to get to the “Eternal city”.

Our first stop was the sacred place called the Vatican, where the Pope lives, and which is also the smallest state in the world. There were lots of people there but the Pope wasn’t there...

We visited St. Peter’s Cathedral where we could contemplate lots of religious works of art, including the Michelangelo’s Pietá. Everything was monumentally exquisite.

Some of us went to the dome of the Cathedral from where they could see a nice perspective of both the Cathedral and the city of Rome while some others visited a very interesting exhibition of very old and original Christian manuscripts found all around the world and first editions of the Bible in different languages.

Then we took a break to have our snacks. As for dessert, we had some very delicious Italian ice-cream.

Next stop: Castello di Sant’Angelo, an amazingly beautiful medieval castle located some metres down the Via della Conciliazione. On one of the many bridges over the river Tevere (Tiber), we stumbled across some locks on its grates, called “Locks of love”, and lots of photos were taken.

During that afternoon, a very funny thing happened: some students kept stopping at the street stands to bargain with the salesmen to get the best price for their souvenirs. And they were successful!

Finally, we had to get back to Montecompatri. When we arrived, the host families were waiting for their “children” after this spectacular day.

But the day wasn’t over yet. Some families took their “children” out on different programmes while the Comenius’ teachers went to Frascati, a little town near Montecompatri, where they had a special dinner on a long “tavola”, in a spirit of friendship, sharing not just ideas about the Comenius project but also about gastronomy.

It was a wonderful day sharing knowledge, good humour. Even the weather was good!