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Kilgraston School awarded £24,000 to foster European contacts

Sophie Jacobs, Katie Townsend, Iona Godfrey-Fausett and Iona Lindsay, who are all working on the Comenius project.
Sophie Jacobs, Katie Townsend, Iona Godfrey-Fausett and Iona Lindsay, who are all working on the Comenius project.

A Perthshire school has been awarded £24,000 to fund its role in an international educational project that encourages young people to study European cultures, languages and values.

Funded by the European Union and aimed at schools, colleges and local authorities across Europe, the Comenius programme involves more than three million students and teachers in international activities.

Girls aged 13 to 16 from Bridge of Earn’s Kilgraston School are currently working and communicating with their opposite numbers in Malta, Austria and Ireland, working on a jointly-agreed topic for their lessons, and exchanging their experiences.

The project is entitled Building Community and its aim is to use social media to bring about positive change on a local, national and international scale.

The school received the funding from the British Council, which administers the scheme in the UK.

The money has been used to purchase iPads and to cover the cost of travel and hosting European visitors to the Perthshire school.

This month, a group of eight girls is travelling to Ireland to strengthen the community relationships already built up with the other schools.

In addition, the girls will enjoy a varied programme of outdoor events, such as canoeing, kayaking and gorge-walking.

The scheme gets its name from the 17th century Czech educator John Amos Comenius, widely regarded as the father of modern education.

One of the quotes attributed to him is: “We are all citizens of one world,” and this belief is reflected in the programme’s objectives.

Andrew Stewart, a teacher at Kilgraston who is leading the project, said: “The key skills of inter-cultural learning, greater literacy, science learning, learning to support entrepreneurship and the development of creativity and innovation are at the heart of Comenius.

“It’s an excellent project that allows our girls to interact with pupils around Europe and I believe there are many benefits. These include cooperative learning, working in groups, and effectively using technology, such as iPads, Skype and Facebook, to link up with our peers throughout Europe,” he went on.

“Comenius lets them see that they are indeed “citizens of one world” and they are hugely enjoying the stimulation this international project is bringing to Kilgraston.”

Iona Godfrey-Fausett, one of the girls involved in the group, said: “The Comenius project is a brilliant way of meeting new people and being involved in the school’s development.”

Kilgraston principal Frank Thompson commented: “The Comenius fund has opened up many opportunities for Kilgraston girls and, next year, we hope to meet pupils from our Austrian partner school at Cern in Switzerland.

“The young physicists from both our schools will learn about Standard Model particle physics and be able to see where the Higgs boson was finally cornered.”