Increasing Sense of Community and Pupil Participation by Means of Internationalism 

Urheilupuisto School is now taking part in Erasmus+ project for the first time. Our prior experience in internationalism has been based on individual teachers’ own connections or cooperative projects. We have noticed that, as a result of the current curriculum, we have now an increased need for global education.

With the help of this project we will be able to promote the cultural and social sustainable development of our school. The know-how gained in the courses will help us to enhance a strong feeling of togetherness both in class and in the entire school community. Through training in practice everyone will develop his/her skills in co-operation and intercultural situations.

Tools for successful European Projects 

Thessaloniki October 15th – 21th 2022 
Participants: Anu Kurki and Eija Parviainen

We had a 7-day course in Thessaloniki, Greece. The course was a European seminar-course in German/English for teacher staff with international participation funded by Erasmus. There were 17 teachers from Germany, Greece and Finland. 

The main theme was project management, everything from planning a project to evaluation and feedback. We learned about team work both in theory and practice and basic information on interculturalism. One day we also tried different online platforms and made exercises with digital media. We had a fotosafari in the city, visited the Jewish Museum, had a guided tour in Thessaloniki and learned about Jewish history and music. 

Networking, meeting like-minded people and making useful contacts was very important for us. We had an opportunity to meet Greek colleagues and hear about the Greek schoolsystem. The most of the participants came from Germany, so German was the main language during the courseweek.  

It was nice to present our own school and Finnish schoolsystem to others. We talked about similarities and differences between German and Finnish school and realised that we all struggle with same kind of problems. 

We were very satisfied with this seminar. The contents of the course gave us many practical tips and a lot of information for the future European projects. One week language practice was useful for both of us. The best outcome was also the new German friends and plans for cooperation.



The 4Cs – Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration in Schools 

Nice October 9th – 15th 2022 

Participants: language teachers Pirkko Järvinen and Suvi Sarlo 

We took part in a 6-day course in Nice, France. The theme of the course was the 4Cs (creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration) and how to help our students improve these 21st century skills. There were seven participants on the course: a language teacher from Spain, two math teachers from Germany, two special education teachers from Latvia and the two of us from Finland. Our trainer was Mathieu Delamarre who has worked as a French teacher and a teacher trainer in France, Thailand, Australia and Japan.  


We had a different theme for each day. We started with communication and practiced different communication strategies and got to know each other. The participants gave presentations on their schools and hometowns. We also talked about the education systems in different countries and compared them. What amazed the others about Finnish schools was the fact that the students get free school lunches and that we have home economics as a compulsory subject.  

On Tuesday we focused on collaboration. We worked in groups and used different strategies to gather information and to share it with each other. On Wednesday our theme was creativity. The focus was on problem solving and thinking outside the box. We worked on different kinds of puzzles - in groups, of course - and tried to find creative ways to solve the problems. Critical thinking was our theme for Thursday. In the 21st century we have so much information available that it’s important to be able to pick out the most essential information. It’s also crucial to be able to analyze what sources can be trusted and what can’t. Everything is not what it seems to be.  

On the last day of the course we went through everything we had studied and practiced during the course and pondered how we could use them in our own classrooms. We were assigned to build a plan and come up with strategies that we could use later in our own classrooms. We presented our plans and talked about them.  

In addition to actual course, we learned a lot in conversations having dinner together, and we also had a very active WhatsApp group where we could continue the discussion. The course itself gave us a lot of new insight, but what we found most fruitful was the conversations with our colleagues from different countries. We made contacts and will surely keep in touch with them later. We also might work together with them in future Erasmus+ projects.