Address: Gurjaani, Tavisupleba st # 20

Country: Georgia

 School website

Project: “The Creation of School Life”

Working language during the project:

• Georgian,
• English
   

Themes of the Council of Europe project “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:

• Making children’s and students’ voices heard
• Improving well-being at school
   

Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:

• Autonomous learning skills
  Students work independently to plan different activities for implementation. They are able effectively to search and gather information using a variety of techniques and sources to independently master new knowledge and create all the resources needed for a project.
• Responsibility
  Students express their willingness to take responsibility for their own actions while working on a project. They demonstrate punctuality through timely execution of their work.
• Linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills
  In online or face-to-face communication, students try to formulate their own words correctly and effectively in an intercultural environment to communicate with foreign friends.
   

Target group age range:

• 11-15
• 15-19
   

Level of education:

• Lower secondary education
• Upper secondary education

Short description of the project:

“The creation of school life” is a project which shows us how the students’ council works at our school. The students’ council helps share ideas and interests and concerns with teachers and school principals. The duration of this project is 10 months. Working on the project gives the chance to students to improve different skills, especially independent working skills. The project member countries are Georgia, Jordan and Armenia. In all these countries, schools work on their own, however they periodically organise various activities, such as: logo competitions, discussions, presentations, events, videos, etc.

The project includes the following activities:

• Establishing a Students Council A.F.S. (Academic Freedom of Students). Collaborating together for planning and implementing project activities. Working with the teachers and other students in the school to create a happy and joyful school life.
• Reflection on creation of a logo for the project by the project partners and organisation of a logo competition. (Using web 2 instruments)
• Organisation of a school trip to see the local sights. Searching for information about these sights and making posters or photo collages to share with the partner schools. School students get acquainted with other countries landmarks as well. A quiz would subsequently be conducted by the Students Councils. Using (kahoot) the first steps of the project was implemented on the eTwinning platform.
• Planning and carrying out of various intellectual games at school with the support of A.F.S. students. (Jeopardy game, What?/where?/when? And so on)
• A survey about democracy throughout the school to be able to record a video. (Students create a digital product, that will be posted on the school blogs or school website).
• Student Council members meeting with active school students once a month to summarise activities previously implemented and plan the next steps to ensure project diversity (to make presentations, posters, etc.).
• Preparation for the event “Black 90’s colourful party” (For happy and joyful days at school) .
  Students work on a poster where everything is described in details so that students from other local schools can attend the party as well.
  With the help of A.F.S. Student Council, schoolchildren work on a party design.
  They research items that families mainly used in the 90s.
  School students prepare for the party, the party is held in the school gym, which takes us back to the 90s.
  At the party, guests can eat burgers, drink juice, play various games, take part in competitions, dance to 90s music, and finally the best dressed girl and boy in 90’s clothes will be awarded a prize.

All activities are planned and carried out by the students. ( Independent working)

In addition to extra-curricular activities, A.F.S. students decide to change any undemocratic approaches in the teaching process as well.

Even today, there are still teachers who try to influence students. Students do not show interest in such undemocratic lessons. That’s why A.F.S. students decide to change everything gradually for the better.

• Arrangement of a meeting - “our role in democratic processes.”
• According to their own ideas, the classroom has become a small state with a president- (the teacher is the president), the government is Academic Freedom of Students and the citizens of the municipality are the students. The "government" plays a big role between the "citizens" and the "president". Three free lessons are planned over 2 months, and are adapted to the students’ interests . As a result, an improved democratic climate is established in the classroom and learning becomes desirable and fun for everyone.
• Production of a video by Academic Freedom of Student which depicts this process. Each product is made by all partner schools and reflects the democratic approaches in the teaching-learning process. Students post all the materials electronically on the project website / blog.

Students will create a new and happier school life at school, where all of them have equal rights. They will make new foreign friends and share ideas for improving their communication skills. We will have a cooperation with European colleagues and schools, students will have constant communication with foreign partners.
 

Aims/objectives

• To create a democratic environment in school life
• To use democracy in daily life
• To increase the role of students in school life
• To improve their information and communication technology skills
   

Expected results/outcomes

Students will create a new and happier active school life, and this will help to form an equality-oriented environment. They will make new friends from different countries and share ideas for improving their communication skills. They will carry out individual and group work to improve their 21st century skills. These kinds of activities will help raise their self-esteem and change their attitudes towards others.
 

Changes

School life will be full of fun and varied activities, thanks mainly to the activity of students.
 

Challenges you faced

To raise self-esteem awareness in students, to enable them to better assess their own abilities, develop self-realization skills and change any stereotypical thinking.
 

Time-frame of the project:

10 months
 

Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:

• Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
• Living Democracy - manuals for teachers
• Democratic governance of schools