Tenth project meeting

The next Erasmus+ project meeting was realized in Holland from 9 to 14 October 2016. The first day was devoted to getting to know the beauty of this country and especially its capital. During the next days we had a chance to visit various schools and kindergartens, during these visits we gathered many interesting remarks:

We really liked that reading literacy and its support plays an important role in Holland. It is common to have school libraries for which the children take care themselves. Older pupils pretend to be librarians and keep records of borrowed books for their younger school mates. In schools, there are thematic weeks. During these weeks, grandmothers and grandfathers are invited to schools to read loud for children in reading corners which are estimated for this reading activities. Besides that in one school they have a magic armchair in which teachers in Hoorn read fairy tales to children. This magic armchair emphasizes the magic moments spent when reading books and encourages emotions in children´s mind.

We also liked a lesson of mathematics which we visited in one elementary school in Hoorn. The pupils were working independently, monitored by a teacher and an assistant teacher. Both of them were walking between pupils and helped them to master the task. Every pupils was working at his/her own pace. The assignment was in the students-book and it was two pages long, the children could estimate individually the order of the particular tasks. The visit to a Montessori school was also very inspiring.  We were very interested in their educational methods especially towards independence. The attitude of teachers to the pupils was very nice. There were also many men teachers which is not very typical in the Czech Republic.

Another innovative element we could see was the support children's relationship to the family and grandparents. Children pretend to be grandfathers and grandmothers, try to walk with walking sticks and help each other. They try to think about what it will be whey they get old and will need help from others, they learn to be more tolerant. This was a week topic in one school in Hoorn which we could visit. During this mobility we had many chances to compare Dutch and Czech educational institutions. All activities and workshops we could attend were really inspiring and we will try to realize them in Czech schools and kindergartens.

Libuše Sudová