For the sixth time, the nationwide “Schools with Class” Festival was held in Warsaw on June 5 and 6. During the Festival, 40 teams of students and teachers participating in the “School with Class 2.0”, “Physical Education with Class”, “Code with Class” and “Digital Academy” programs presented the results of their work.
The Festival was part of the two-day Open Education Festival which apart from summing up the activities carried out under “with Class” programs in 2015/16 school year was also a forum for discussion about the space that facilitates learning.
For the sixth time, the nationwide “Schools with Class” Festival was held at the National Audiovisual Institute in Warsaw on June 5 and 6. During the Festival, 40 teams of students and teachers participating in the “„School with Class” 2.0”, “Physical Education with Class”, “Code with Class” and “Digital Academy” presented the results of their work. Apart from summing up the activities carried out under “with Class” programs in 2015/16 school year, during the two-day Open Education Festival, the part of which was the “School with Class” Festival, students and teachers could attend interesting workshops and discuss various issues related to the educational space.
The Festival opening ceremony made a good opportunity to sum up not only the last year’s results but also whole activities carried under the “School with Class” initiative, that will soon celebrate its 15th anniversary (the program was launched by the Center for Citizenship Education in 2002). It was also announced that the 15-year experience and the potential of the “with Class” programs served as the basis to establish the „School with Class” Foundation.
The Festival inauguration was also an opportunity for the PAFF Director Katarzyna Maniszewska to present the Polish-American Freedom Foundation and University of Warsaw School of Education – a new, innovative post-graduate study course for future teachers.
The official part was followed by the main item on the agenda, that is the presentation of the student projects. The teams of students presented their activities carried out during the last school year and made efforts to teach the Festival guests and experts visiting their stands something new. For example, the visitors could learn how to make their own hologram, how the human body is built, how to activate a robot with the Scratch program, or plan interesting physical activities, team games, and even mix them with other subjects, such as mathematics.
On the second day of the Festival its participants could attend workshops and the “Educational Spaces 21. We open the school!” conference summing up the two-year “Eduspaces 21” initiative concerning the space that facilitates learning. The initiative is managed by the Center for Citizenship Education in international partnership as part of the ERASMUS + Program.
The „School with Class” is a nationwide educational initiative carried out from 2002 by the Center for Citizenship Education (presently: the „School with Class” Foundation) and Gazeta Wyborcza daily, in cooperation with the Polish-American Freedom Foundation. Since 2002, a total of over eight thousand schools, more than 100,000 teachers and more than one million students have participated in this action. Its objective is promoting a school that prepares students to live in the modern world, encourages them to undertake new challenges and educates active citizens. Since 2010, one of the programs that make part of the action is the „School with Class 2.0”, which encourages introduction and use of new ICT in everyday school practice and is addressed to all levels of schools all over Poland.
In 2015/16 school year the “School with Class 2.0” was implemented in 335 schools. The recruitment for the next edition of the program will start in August 2016. http://szkolazklasa.org.pl/o-nowej-edycji-szkoly-z-klasa-2-0/
More information about the Open Education Festival can be found at
http://szkolazklasa.org.pl/festiwal-otwartej-edukacji/
More information about the program can be found at
