My photos from Magic in Greece

Here you have a link for my photos, taken from my phone so not so brilliant, from our trip to Thessaloniki and Athens.

A video from Slovakia about them... and us

Exchange boxes

I apologise for not posting the photos earlier but here you have some images of our group opening the exchange boxes we received from everyone.

I don't have a lot because my students were supposed to send them to me, they were taking the photos after all.  If I get some more I will send them on.

My Flikr album for Slovenia

If you would like to see the photos that I (Huw) took in Slovenia then please click here on the photo.

There used to be a way to put Flikr here on Blogspot as a gallery... can't find that now, which is a shame.

Anyway, enjoy.

Photo Competition for Slovenia

Here you have the link for the photos we have chosen for the photo competition for our visit to Slovenia.

Some of them are quite simply very beautiful so thank you very much to all my students.

Please leave comments at the bottom of the page if you want to, you can also vote for the best if you feel like it though the winner will be decided by the students here in Roquetes after the exhibition.

To see them all click on the photo or here.

Students from the Comenius project interviewed on local radio

Last May 25th I went with three students from the Comenius project to visit our local radio station.  As you can see they were Paula Mur, Mar Sebastia and Andrea Montecino. 

The interview, as you can imagine, is in Catalan so I am afraid not many of you will understand it.  We should have the video of the interview too, which would at least be a little more entertaining, but the links don't work.

Still, never mind, Comenius is alive and being broadcast to the wider community here in our area.

Have a listen if you are feeling brave, just click on the photo.

Our new school mural and motto

This term the art teachers of our school and their students have worked really hard to complete a mural outside the entrance to our school.

Now that it is done Alfred has prepared a short presentation about it and also about the new school motto.

Here is the link if you are interested in seeing it.

Pharrell Williams - Happy ( We are from Komárno, Slovakia )

This is the video from the Comenius students in Komárno, it is absolutely brilliant. Well done everybody!!

The Comenius Project on Canal TE television

Today we were fortunate to be invited to participate in a live programme on our local TV channel.  It is called "Plaça Major", which means the main square, and goes out live every Friday.

If you are interested you can see me, Huw, from minute 37 onwards talking with Jaume and two other guests about the Comenius project, erasmus and working as an au pair.

Here is a photo from the recording and the video is below.  Sorry it is all in Catalan but that can't be helped.

Curiously this same morning my youngest son Ethan was also at the TV studio as part of the public.  If you want to identify him he is sitting in the top left area fourth from the end.

Netherlands photo exhibition (finally!)

Yes it has taken all this time but I finally received the last of the photos from the Netherlands trip for the exhibition, I won't say who it was that took so long because Aaron would be embarassed.

So here you have some photos of the exhibition as it is at the moment in the main corridor of our school.

As you can see in the two pictures below there is an envelope for voting.  All of the students in school can vote by leaving their name and their vote for the picture they like best.  In a fortnight's time we will count the votes and then I will have the winning photo printed as a poster.

MAGIC appears on our local radio station

This month, on the 7th, we were fortunate enough to be invited participate in an interview on our local radio station.  Antena Caro is run by our local council and broadcasts to all of our area, reaching about 30,000 people.

I went with Patricia Cases, Alba Blanco and Aaron Falco and we talked about the project in general, our recent trip to the Netherlands and our next trip to Slovenia.  It was a great experience and a lot of fun.

Unfortunately the interview is in Catalan but if you like you can click on the photo and listen to it.

Questions from Roquetes second year students to all of you!

Here you have some questions that the students of the second year here in Roquetes have prepared for you all.

Please click here or click on the photo below to visit the video questions page.

Please leave an answer to one or more of the questions, this makes the project more interesting for other students in our schools.

When you answer please say whose question you are answering mentioning their name, Ok?

If you like you can go directly to our YouTube channel and watch the videos there.  Click on the photo below to go there.

Photos from our trip to the Netherlands

Slowly... very slowly, we are finally managing to collect the photos from the trip to the Netherlands.  Please click here to go and see our photos.

Here is a sample.

The cups song on the last night

Thanks to Tatiana I can now post a video of the cups song that we sang together on the last night at the Hostal in Amsterdam.

Ainoa looks a little bored!

Comenius students participate in protests against the cuts in Education

Yesterday evening, Wednesday November 20th, students from our Comenius group took part in protests outside the offices of the "Partit Popular in Tortosa.  They, and the other people present, were protesting both the cuts and the new laws introduced in education here in Spain and Catalunya.

Education here has been suffering some of the worst cuts in recent times.  Spending in education in Catalunya has been reduced by 30% but the number of students has increased by 200,000.  The costs of a university education have increased enormously and the money available to students in grants has been reduced. We also have a new law on education reform, called the "Ley Wert" after Jose Ignacio Wert the minister for education in Madrid, that is going to change education in Cataluyna drastically.

For all these reasons students are now taking an active part in demonstrations against the ruling parties both here in Catalunya and in Madrid.

Here is our group in the protest from last night.

It was also very cold!

Boti, boti, boti, conformista qui no boti!

Results of the logo competition

And the winner is.... logo 3!!!

Here is the new improved official version of the logo for the project.  Please include it on all of your blogs so that we all use the same one. 

Thank you to everyone for your logos, you are welcome to use them on your blogs as well as the winner, they represent your hard work too!

The Logo Competition, you can now vote!!!

The logo competition is now officially open.

Please click here to see the logos.  You can't vote individually, you can only vote as part of your country group.  The only votes I will count are the official ones posted by your teachers but anyone can leave a comment if you particularly like a logo.  Please don't leave any negative comments because my students are very sensitive and can't handle criticism!!

The Logo Competition

We have to choose a logo for the project.

At the moment I haven't received many contributions.  The ones I have are in a seperate page here or you can find them clicking on the link on the right.

Here is the only one I have had from my own students, at the moment, and I suspect they got it from the internet!!

Practising the cups song

After our meeting this Monday we decided to see if we were able to follow the actions in the cups song.  This is all our group when we started and then you have a couple of videos of our progress.

And here is a short video.  The rhythm is not brilliant but we are trying.




Then I asked them to all sit in a circle to see if it got any better.

And as you can see... it didn't.

I love this, great fun.  If you want to make your own images or even order posters, mugs and so on then visit 

http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/creator/

A great page.

 

Meeting September 23rd

Today we had another meeting.  We created our groups and started to think about the logo.  We also took a group picture (two people are missing here).

Our first Comenius meetings

This week we have just had our first two Comenius meetings.  The first one was just to see how many people were interested in the project.  Alfred and I were pleased to see almost thirty people at the meeting.  We explained the project and said that the next day we would be running interviews to choose the most able students.

The next day when everyone came we saw that the numbers had gone down to only sixteen!  It seems that a lot of people didn't like the idea of meeting in the afternoon, here school finishes at 14.45, and so had decided they weren't interested.  Personally I think that maybe the idea of an interview scared them off.

Anyway we were talking and fortuntely a few more people appeared who were still interested so in the end we have a complete group of 21.  All went well and so now we have agreed to meet on Monday.  Then we will decide groups and I will begin to explain the project themes.

Oh, we have seven people who want to go to the Netherlands.  They had already decided!!  Six girls and one boy.

The Teachers from Roquetes

Hi, we are Huw and Alfred, we are the teachers who will be running the Comenius Project here in Roquetes.

First we should introduce ourselves.

Huw Edwards-Westlake

My name is Huw, I am the coordinator for Roquetes and in fact the coordinator for the whole project.  I don't look very Spanish do I?  Well that is because I am not, in fact I am British.  I come from Stansted a small village to the north-east of London.  I originally studied History and Politics and then after working for a year I decided to leave the UK and go to live in a foreign country.  I chose, by accident, to come here to Roquetes.  I didn't originally intend to stay but I met the girl who is now my wife and... the rest is history.

I have been here now for longer than the time I lived in Britain.  I am an English teacher, big surprise right, and I consider myself to be a European, a Catalan and then a British citizen.  You notice I didn't say Spanish... more of that at another time.

I have been in two Comenius projects already.  One called YEAD (Young Europeans, Alike but Different) and then VAGAB (Values Across Generations and Borders).  I love doing these projects and I greatly enjoy meeting all of our partner teachers and students.  We are all going to work really hard but also have a lot of fun... I hope you all like singing and dancing and playing silly games!!

Alfred Valldivieso

Hallo! Ahoj! Pozdravi! Hei! Geia sas! Salvete omnes!

Hi everyone,

My name is Alfred Valdivieso and I am delighted to be Huw’s partner in this new  adventure. I come from Valencia, but I teach Ancient Greek and Latin in Roquetes and I really enjoy doing it.  Although I am fond of languages, my English is not very fluent, so I hope you are patient with me in the beginning. I also love music (I play the flute in the band of my city), dancing (my colleagues and even my pupils know it well...) and meeting people from  other countries. 

I’ll do my best to run this Project with Huw, as I am sure we all are going to share a funny, amazing and unforgettable experience.