20 teachers from Catalonia, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Portugal spent a delightful week from 22nd to 29th January in England, Tonbridge, hosted for the second time already by a welcoming Hillview School for Girls staff.
The school, which is a performing Arts College, surprised every visitor again by the variety of activities offered to the students, the quality of works displayed in the halls, the quantity of photos and posters illustrating wonderful events and indicating learners' achievements.The guests were met by heartwarming songs performed by the students right in the school arrival hall.
The visiting teachers were taken on a tour to explore the school premises and, after that, job shadowing activities followed. The Committee discussed the tasks to be carried out during the week. Then, after lunch, everyone took part in David Hodgson's seminar on Neuroscience in Education. It was interesting to learn some facts about the spaced learning, discuss the ways to improve a student's memory, discover effective revision methods and understand the importance of seven key hormones influencing motivation and learning itself.
On Wednesday, the teams worked on accomplishing project products. As our project intellectual output consists of two parts: teachers' protocol and students' protocol, first, teachers expressed their opinion about the developed project product - Metaminds Teachers' protocol, as well as shared experiences while testing it in each school. Later, the teachers had an opportunity to test the games from the Pupils' protocol on Hillview School for Girls children.
Next day was dedicated to the cultural visit of Canterbury, a cathedral city and a former pilgrimage site, where we could experience the sights, sounds and smells of medieval England, walking alongside Chaucer’s pilgrims and listening to five colourful tales of love,
infidelity, intrigue, courtship and death, vividly brought to life by entertaining costumed guides. The city is famous for its medieval centre with cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. The most fascinating landmark is Canterbury Cathedral, which was founded in 597 A.D. and became a major focus of pilgrimage following the 1170 martyrdom of Thomas Becket. A journey of pilgrims to Becket's shrine served as the frame for Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century classic The Canterbury Tales.
On Friday, teachers had a few more job shadowing sessions and also Character workshop with Margret Smith as, according to Dr Martin Luther King Junior, intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education. After the presentation, the discussion about Character Education in different schools followed.
The Committee have planned the final meeting and conference in Rome, set deadlines for remaining tasks and time for bidding farewell to Hillview School for Girls community came. Too soon as always...However, one more cultural experience was in stock for us that night - Burns Night at Hadlow Manor - traditional Scottish feast with a piper, haggis and dancing!
The Committee have planned the final meeting and conference in Rome, set deadlines for remaining tasks and time for bidding farewell to Hillview School for Girls community came. Too soon as always...However, one more cultural experience was in stock for us that night - Burns Night at Hadlow Manor - traditional Scottish feast with a piper, haggis and dancing!
On Saturday, all the teams could explore London having selected the routes according to their own interests.
To sum up, it was a great week - we broadened our horizons, improved intercultural competence, grew up professionaly. Thank you, Rachel Blackmore, for such a wonderful organisation and many thanks to all of you, dear English colleagues, for being perfect hosts! We will all meet again in Rome, in May - for the last time under the flag of Metaminds.
