School number 34 in Toruń is a small complex of a primary school and a junior high school offering general education. There are 12 regular classrooms, an ICT classroom, a library, a common room, a small and a big gym and a few staff and management rooms. There are about 300 students and nearly 30 teachers. It is located in the suburbs of the city surrounded by forests near the Vistula River. The nearby area offers clean air and fabulous landscapes. However, it is partly disadvantaged as people living in this district have got only a few small local shops and a church here. Getting to the doctor or any institutions means taking a bus or a taxi to the city center unless you have a car.
This public school employs high-quality staff. The core curriculum subjects are additionally developed in afternoon classes and after-school clubs. They are organised for both talented and disadvantaged students with learning difficulties. Every year we hold different competitions for schools from the whole city covering different subjects: art, music, sports, history and participate in many others. The Erasmus project will enable students develop their social and communication skills with their peers from other European countries. Active participation should enable students to gain knowledge and experience in intercultural and international cooperation. One of the main aims of our participation in this project is to make students speak, communicate and express themselves while discovering the surrounding world. It will surely bring new challenge to our school as the previous project dealt with culture and cuisine.
Green issues have been present at our school for many years so far. Each year we actively paricipate in the Clean Up the World action and all students leave school to pick up rubbish from the school area and the forest near the school. Every year we organise many enterprises like collecting scrap paper (this year our students collected over 3 tonnes of recyclable paper), collecting bottle caps (we give them to a hospice for children and help them this way), collecting used/waste baterries. The school has got a big playground and some green area around to plant trees or bushes. Also annualy the school paricipates in a competition called "My forest trophy" in which students create some piece of art using only natural things they have found in the forest. We also make ecological Christmas cards or ornaments out of natural or recyclable materials. This year some students from our school take part in the action of planting trees in forests near Toruń. The staff is always involved in such actions encouraging students and parents to participate in them. Some teachers work actively in a local area beyond the school and their expertise is great enough to support our project. Moreover, after our previous Comenius project some teachers realised they lack communicative level of language and a few of them - highly-motivated - have started attending English courses to improve their fluency and communication skills.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.This communication reflects the views only of the author. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
