Short Desciption

This project bring together 6 Special Schools from EU all with a slightly different area of focus and expertise but all school are aware of the social isolation of their pupils. Our project aims to tackle this issue and enable our pupils to play a more productive and involved role in our European society. Our efforts aim to ensure we raise skill levels of these vulnerable students and have a direct and life long impact on the connectivity with society in general.

Sunday, October 31, 2021

Slovenian team impression from mobility week in Varaždin, Croatia (18th to 23rd october 2021)

 As part of the Erasmus+ Project Getting to Know Us, we attended the first mobility to Croatia. Activities took place from the 18th to 23rd of October 2021, with participants from Austria (Vienna), Croatia (Varaždin), Germany (Heide), Ireland (Galway), Northern Ireland (Belfast), and Slovenia (Ptuj). The locations of the first mobility were Varaždin and Zagreb.

After the welcome event at the School Center of Education Tomislav Špoljar, the school Headmaster Marin Vučić gave us a detailed presentation of the work of his institution and the special needs students’ education system in Croatia. Later on, the main coordinator of the project Colm Burns (Northern Ireland) summarized the work done so far on the project and presented plans for the future. The group set the dates for the following mobilities and Zoom meetings.

In the course of the mobility, we visited School Centar Tomislav Špoljar for the needs of children with developmental difficulties. We visited the school and had the opportunity to attend classes and were impressed by the equipment of the school, which is very modern and adapted for students with special needs,  the activities they carry out, the way of teaching, the engagement of the teachers, their hospitality and willingness to share ideas and examples of good practice. We also attended various workshops (fractal drawing, music workshop, baking of the traditional »Varaždinski klipiči« and ceramics workshop, where we made Christmas ornaments and bowls, which will be decorated by the students of Centar Tomislav Špoljar in the following weeks). Also, we visited a regular primary school with pupils in integration VI. Elementary School Varaždin, where the school Headmaster Mario Stančić and his colleagues gave us a tour around the school and presented their work with children with special needs. There we debated the differences and many similarities of school systems and working with students with special needs. The final part of the mobility was dedicated to getting to know the participants and their students even better. We had a videoconference call with participants' classes. The students and teachers presented themselves and then every group had to sing a song for others to sing and dance to. Students were very excited to see each other.

In addition to all of the professional and educational content of the mobility, we also had the opportunity to see some of the outstanding places in Varaždin, as the historic city center with the guided tour of the castle and the museum. Especially interesting was the exhibit of the clothes and accessories which were once worn by the residents of Varaždin - very different from the clothes worn today. We would also like to mention the visit to the capital of Croatia – Zagreb. We walked the streets and admired the many sights. We visited a unique museum called the Museum of broken relationships where we learned the love stories and their endings from people from all over the world. It was interesting to learn how people in all different parts of the world have very similar life experiences.

The first mobility gave us a very valuable insight into the practices of working with children with developmental difficulties. Through observation, presentations, and conversations we exchanged experiences, examples of good practice, thoughts, visions, views, new ideas and gained motivation to transfer all this newly acquired knowledge to work. We are particularly grateful to the staff of the School Center Tomislav Špoljar and the main coordinator Mr. Marin Vučić for the well-chosen activities.

We would like to once again sincerely thank you Mr. Marin Vučić for the organization of a great start to the Erasmus+ Project and we are excited to see other participants and learn their way of working with students with special needs. See you in Belfast next time.

Slovenian team 



 

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