This page is also available in Dutch (klik hier)

Information about our European Project

Below you can choose the country you want to know more about:

De Octopus reaches over borders...

The world is becoming smaller and smaller. Thanks to the use of modern media, there are few places on Earth that remain a mystery to us.

At school, we place a great deal of emphasis on respect, standards and values. Getting along with people means having respect for each other. We have to accept that people are different. There is no room for prejudice. The basis for this is getting to know others to know and respecting them. In order to get to know each other, we have to communicate.

We have to be able to express our feelings. Despite differences, we all have things in common. The tools to be able to pass along this message are present in every school. The computer and the link with the World Wide Web provide a simple way to be heard in many places across the world from our own classroom. The English language, which is already in the curriculum of the oldest children at primary school, is a great practical way to be able to understand each other.

In 1997, these thoughts led our school to look for contacts with schools abroad. The European Platform's Comenius education project and the Council of Zwolle gave us the financial possibilities to set up an international project with foreign schools. Our initiative was rewarded. Now, six years later, we look back with pleasure on what has happened and what will happen… Our CHIP (Communication Helps International Progress) Project has been carried on by participating schools.

Every year, the working together of participating schools is evaluated, and a theme and activities for the coming year are planned. For the sixth time , our yearly school newspaper “Kaboom” appeared in April 2003. Written in English by children between the ages of 10 and 12, it is put together by one of the participating schools. Former pupils from De Octopus who have left for the Van der Capellen or Thorbecke Secondary schools come back for a day to help pupils in groups 7 and 8 with the English translation of their articles.

Contact between the schools abroad are so solid that many children from the oldest classes regularly correspond with foreign classmates, whether it be at home or at school. When the children tell you enthusiastically about their contacts and show you their photos, you see how busy we are with everything.

The children in the middle groups at school also have their own say in things by participating in an art project. Each school sends six of their pupils' drawings to all of the other schools. In May, the drawings the schools have received are displayed in an exhibition. Each piece of work is shown, along with the details and a photo of the person who made it.

The youngest groups take part in a music project. This is the third time that we have a “Theme CD”, on which are songs from all of the participating schools in their own language. So our children learn to sing in English, French, Hungarian and Ukrainian/Russian! Last year, our own group 3, and this year group 5, even performed the international repertoire in the Odeon theatre in Zwolle!

In the main hall at De Octopus, we have a map of Europe which displays information about each of the participating schools in our project. These are:

• Basisschool van het Koninklijk Atheneum, Assebroek-Brugge/Belgium
• Ecole Notre Dame Bourg-en Bresse /France
• Kodály Téri Általános Iskola, Szeged/Hungary
• Secondary school 309 Kyiv/Ukraine
• School 12 Chernihiv/Ukraine
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Esgueira/Portugal

We have also begun to have contact with new schools; a infants' school in Poland and a school in Latvia.

Below are some photos of “The Three Musketeers”, with whom Annette and Sandra went to Bourg-en-Bresse in France for the conference in 2003.