European Values in Primary Schools

Newsletter
April 2019

European Values Developments
Partners have been very busy this academic year.
They have taken the model from Parkinson Lane and
worked with schools in their own country to train
teachers on the methodology of using drama to pro-
mote values and to integrate values and culture. All
the training materials are available online at
https://europeanvalues.weebly.com
In Italy 3 schools have been chosen because of the
high number of immigrants they host. The schools will
record their performances which cover a range of
topics including inclusion, integration and sharing
values in the school in Syracuse; diversity as a value
in the school in Palermo; and local stories in the
school in Mazara.
The UK has once again involved the whole school in
a set of productions. This year the focus has been on
powerful women and covered such topics as the Suf-
fagettes or, for the younger pupils, Little Red Riding
Hood and Pocohontas. Parkinson Lane has its own
YouTube channel and all the productions can be
seen there – it’s well worth a visit
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCneNZkfk2cwx-
Ty4w1heO_Q/videos The school has completed 30
case studies which were shared during a recent Of-
sted inspection.

In Belgium 2 Catholic Schools and 1 Islamic school

are involved in the project. St Ursule, Rive Gauche
and La Vertu. Their aim is to focus on EU values in
schools in the light of terrorist incidents in Brussels.
The schools paid a further study visit to Parkinson
Lane in Halifax and left very motivated. Some per-
formances have already taken place and the schools
are looking forward to promoting the project in Bel-
gium, including showcasing at the final conference.
The Greek production
Greece – We were able to enjoy the theatrical per-
formance of 3 schools during the visit and they fo-
cused on humanistic / EU values to support children
to adjust to being global citizens and to adapt to living
in the EU. The methodology is now a part of the
curriculum for the schools. The children are a mix of
those of Greek origin as well as refugees and immi-
grants and came from the 1st Primary School on Sin-
dos, Neochorda’s Primary School and the 5th Primary
School on Ampelokipoi.

Year 6 production at Parkinson Lane – The Angel in the North

Germany is taking a different approach to the topic

by working on the methodology at a high school,
which will add value to the overall work

2017-1-UK01-KA201-036591
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Progress meeting in Greece
Our Greek partner, the Department of Primary Edu-
cation Western Thessaloniki hosted our third partner
meeting on 20th to 23rd March 2019.
Partners gather in Greece for the third management meeting
Our meeting provided an opportunity to provide an
update from partners on the work to date and to plan
for the next steps. We discussed how to gather evi-
dence of impact and looked at some of the key areas
of evidence, namely impact on teachers’ pedagogy,
impact on pupil achievement, impact on the curricu-
lum and impact on values. The project will also de-
velop an overarching impact study with recommenda-
tions for school policy and our German partner, who
is leading this strand of the project, outlined progress
to date and the further information required from
partners. The meeting also discussed the dissemina-
tion strategy.
The highlight of the visit was undoubtedly the oppor-
tunity to see the work of the Greek partner in practice.
We were able to enjoy the formal dramatic produc-
tions of the schools involved.
One of the refugee children’s Dove of Peace
2017-1-UK01-KA201-036591
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
We also had opportunity to visit a refugee camp and
the local Primary school hosting the refugees. This
brought home to us the real challenges faced by the
school in receiving so many nationalities, many of
whom have lived through traumatic experiences and
lost their friends and families.
We were able to talk to some of the pupils. They had
lost their home status but were no different from any
other Primary pupil, with an enthusiasm to learn and
ambitions for the future.
Pupils from the refugee camp welcome us to their school
The work that the school was doing was outstanding
and we enjoyed musical presentations and an Olym-
pic style parade showing the different nationalities
present.
Next Steps
We are now refining the materials that have been
produced by the project and planning for our dissem-
ination events. There will be one in each of the part-
ner countries and then a final international confer-
ence in Brussels on 26th September 2019.
Find out More
To find out more about the project visit our website
https://europeanvalues.weebly.com/. Here you will
find more details about the project and the partners.
We have also developed a resource page where you
can download the resources as they are developed.
We are in the process of developing country pages
for each partner. You can also find us on Twitter
@European Values1 and Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/European-Values