The project entitled Europe in S.H.A.P.E. is a school exchange partnership of five schools from the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Sweden.
We aim to demonstrate the importance of healthy lifestyle, present its benefits and impact on the individual, family and public life. The five letters in S.H.A.P.E. stand for five words representing areas we will focus on: sport, health, addiction,prevention and education.
We decided to create this project, because participation in sport and physical activity is stagnating, and in some European countries even declining. It’s not just people’s health and well-being that suffers. It is also our society and economy as a whole. We spend more on health care, there is a loss of productivity in the workplace and reduced employability. The European Union itself initiates many projects and activities in this field. There have been a lot of surveys, and a lot of studies have been developed.
Beside healthy lifestyle promotion, we aim to expand our pupils ́ horizons, raise their personal aspirations. We want to support our teachers and pupils in acquiring and developing basic skills -their resilience, self-confidence and sense of responsibility. We will develop positive inter-cultural attitudes of all participants by working in multicultural teams and reaise their knowledge of participating countries. We believe that the project will foster their communication skills and will help children tackle obstacles in other curriculum subjects and in their personal lives. The project will help to promote a comprehensive approach to learning and teaching English and will improve ICT skills of all participants.
The target group of our project involves 670 pupils (age 10-15) from all five participating schools. It is at this age when children become independent and responsible for their actions. We realize the social responsibility of schools and will support all pupils with fewer opportunities, including pupils from low-income families, those with disabilities, and health and educational difficulties. 119 pupils will participate in meetings directly.
The number of participating teachers is 130, out of which 49 will take part in mobilities.
Other participants include local authorities in towns of all partner schools, families and friends of pupils, guests invited to take part at project events such as sportsmen, coaches, addiction experts.
All project activities will relate to five key topics of the project: sport, health, addiction, prevention and education. We will organize outdoor activities, work outs, tournaments, participate in preventive programmes, introduce traditional and new sports to pupils, learn about traditional cuisines of partner countries and promote healthy diet, learn about addictions and their prevention, make videos and create photostories. At each meeting the host school will present their educational system with focus on teaching healthy lifestyle.
The results we will achieve include 5 presentations about participating countries and schools, 5 presentations about educational systems, 1 initial questionnaire related to S.H.A.P.E. topics addressed to the target group, 1 final questionnaire to compare the answers and find out particular impact of the activities, a project logo, a project web page, 5 project corners presenting the activities at each partner school, The Blue Zone Project posters, videos and photo stories made by pupils to show addictions, and their impact on people, 5 photo albums – each about one of the S.H.A.P.E. topics and 1 eBook as the mail material product of the project.
The cooperation and communication process among all partners will be permanent in order to build strong connections, stay involved, offer feedback, discuss the progress and solve potential problems. All partners have agreed to use email, Messenger, TwinSpace and Facebook as the main means of communication. To secure active contribution of all participating schools we have created and agreed on a list of tasks to be fulfilled throughout the project period. All partners will follow the guidelines, will supply the detailed profile of activities, will organize project team meetings in their school, and will complete the tasks in the given time. In a long-term perspective the participation in the project will raise all involved schools’ profile. It will support social inclusion in all partner schools, attract new pupils and new staff, support a more comprehensive approach to teaching and learning English, foster interdisciplinary learning, integrate ICT in classes, inspire teachers to start new eTwinning and Erasmus+ projects, motivate teachers and pupils to acquire and develop basic skills and key competences, and increase knowledge of all participants about healthy lifestyle. We believe that through our project activities we can offer a starting point for pupils from the target group to begin developing positive habits which they can carry on into adulthood.