Transnational Meeting in Italy in November 2021
(Please visit this page again soon - pictures to follow!)
Between the 8th and 12th of November 2021, Mrs Billington and Mr Johnson met with partners from each of our ERASMUS+ link schools in Faenza, northern Italy, to discuss next steps and share how we're all using and develop digital learning technology in our own schools. Clearly, due to the pandemic and the need to rapidly convert to remote learning in schools across Europe, we have all experienced many different technologies and approaches which we'd not imagined having to use at the start of this project!
Due to ongoing COVID-restrictions, we were only able to spend two days in school and spent the other days visiting local cities and town gaining an appreciation of the local culture, architecture and history of this beautiful area of Italy.
In school we were able to join an English lesson with a class of 12 year old students and enjoyed video conferencing with Mr Johnson's Year 5 class. Children enjoyed discussing the similarities and differences of their school experience and found out about each others hobbies and interests.
The town of Faenza is internationally recognised for its ceramics. We visited a local museum, local sites of interest and considered the development of our Trades of the Future project where children will consider how technology will change and enhance local trades and jobs into the future.
The city of Bologna is famed for its 65km of portico arches which form many of the city's pavements. It lies around a 30 minute train journey from Faenza. Our children loved seeing the photos and videos of double decker trains! Bologna has a long history and beautiful architecture. We visited some of the many Roman buildings, including Christian churches with long and fascinating histories, some dating back to the 4th Century CE. Mr Johnson thoroughly enjoyed sampling many pizzas and pasta dishes - although of course bolognaise is never to be eaten with spaghetti and the 'Bolognese pasta' is actually a tortellini which should be served in a chicken broth.
Ravenna is another beautiful historic city close to Faenza. It is the resting place of Dante, and is famed for its many, many beautiful and truly sparkling mosaics. Some of the mosaics date back to the 3rd or 4th Century CE. To say we were awe-struck is putting it mildly! The mosaics are almost all constructed of very small pieces of less than a centimeter and are dominated with rich deep reds, blues and gold. Again, lots more opportunity for our project to consider how digital technologies our children will be developing and using in their adult lives can enhance and support the traditional skills, the jobs and livelihoods of locals. We explored the severe impact of climate change in Ravenna where the water table is rising, one church has made a feature of this by converting the beautifully mosaiced crypt into a fishpond which can be seen from inside the church.
