All partners are required to be able to communicate effectively via computers in English and the Pas/Community will make sure that necessary skills will be taught to all participating parents as well. To ensure active involvement the co-ordinator will contact all partners at regular intervals and the secretaries of Pas/Community will send monthly progress reports to one another. Furthermore, a web page will be designed so that the entire school community can follow the progress of the project as well as enjoy photos and videos of different activities.
We expected this project to be a new way of motivating members and management of the Pas/Community. It has made all the partners to work in a systematic and organized manner and to communicate more effectively. Individual members have been learning about partner organizations and countries and this has broaden their perspective and given them alternative ways of approaching various issues. Furthermore, by comparing each others practices we are able to do benchmarking during the last period of our project. For each participating individual the project has offered a great chance to improve language and IT as well as negotiating skills.
If we manage to actively involve immigrant parents and children even better to interact with other immigrant parents, Pas/Community and children it will maybe lead to better understanding of different cultures and manners.
Target goals for the first period were as follows in a nutshell:
12/2009 Introduction Guidebook
5/2010 web- pages linked to each other
As a summary by coordinator:
All partners have been active within this project and have done the activities agreed in project programme. It has taken quite a lot of time to get aquainted each others and create effective co-operation between the partners.
Introduction Guidebook has been done by each partner.
We did not succeed within the evaluation by questionnaire which was made by Greece Partner. The evaluation was perfectly done in Greece, the others missed the questionnaire. We re-checked e-mail addresses and came to the conclusion that there was a fatal error within e-mail addresses.
However, evaluation was made during project meeting in Finland and results were collected to memorandum which was made during the meeting. The memorandum has been sent to all partners.
All partners succeeded to offer minimum 4 open lectures and workshops per school year around various topics related to life-long learning and IT and to arrange minimum 4 multicultural activities per school year activating the entire school community (parents, teachers, pupils).
The work with linked web –pages has delayed, but we have founded a Facebook Profile to our project in May 2010. We made an effort to write a project blog but it did not succeed.
During the project meetings in Portugal and Finland we have got closer to each others as partners and co-workers. Communication in all levels between partners has recovered during the project.
The activities undertaken by Aurinkolahti Comprehensive School Parents´Association as a coordinator in the project during the past year were:
1) The Parental Meeting in September 2009, (The Aurinko Marketing) .
The Parents´Association members with the pupils, teachers and parents got together in an event where pupils had a chance to collect funds for their own class for the purpose of e.g. class trips. The pupils organized the sales with their parents and teachers. Furthermore, there were multicultural performances, musical performances, flea market, sales for home made cookings in the event as well as a stand by the Parents’ Association where the Association’s representatives told about the activities of the association. The event was a success and the parents´association got some potential active members among immigrant parents.
2)Aurinkolahti parents´association members took part in the first Project Meeting in Portugal in November. In the meeting partners were able to get to know each other and the organizations they represent and discuss the success of the beginning of the project. Moreover, the partners decided when and how to conduct the planned activities for the rest of the school year.
3)The school partner and the Parents’ Association organized two separate parties at the end of the term. Parents’ Association’s party was organized as a tribute to the Independence Day of Finland. In the event, which was open to all parents, pupils performed both dances and music. The school organized the second end-of-the-term party where both school staff and pupils participated. Again, pupils had prepared music and dances to perform for the whole school. Both parties were successful, bringing parents and pupils together in a joyous event celebrating the end of the school term and the independence of Finland.
4) January 2010 the school staff organized an IT-skills class for parents and members of parents´association were present. The purpose of the class was to tutor parents in the use of the electronic communication system, Wilma. Wilma is a web interface for student administration, where teachers can grade students, register absences and update personal information as well as communicate with students and guardians. In addition, guardians can clear absences, communicate with teachers and read announcements. A Somali interpreter was arranged to co-tutor the class and interpret the instructions to Somali parents, whose children are one of the ethnic minorities represented in our school. The school representative was also prepared to instruct the use of Wilma in English. Unfortunately, no parents showed up for the IT-skills class.
5) In February, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, the Parents’ Association together with the school partner organized a cooking class for all willing parents in the school’s premises. Two immigrant parents from Kenya and Italy prepared their home countries’ traditional dishes as they were also teaching other participants to make the food. There were several parents and pupils present in the event and it turned out to be successful.
6) In March, the school’s international team and the Parents’ Association worked together to prepare a guidebook for all immigrant families. The purpose of the guidebook is to offer a short but concise and on-the-point guide on how the Finnish school is like, what kind of rules there are and how to prepare for e.g. school days. The first draft of the guidebook was finished by the end of March and the next step is to co-operate with the City of Helsinki Education Department to further continue translating and finally publishing the guidebook to be offered to all immigrant families and their children starting in Aurinkolahti comprehensive school.
7) In April, the school organized a seminar for all parents on a current topic, drugs and their abuse. In the seminar a lecturer educated parents on how to recognise drug use in children and young people and what implications there might be of such actions. Although more than ten families were represented in the seminar, it was expected that more would show up.
8) In May, the school in co-operation with the Parents’ Association hosted the second Project Meeting for all partners. During the meet the partners had two project meetings where they firstly discussed the past year in terms of all the activities and events as well as their successfulness. Secondly, the second meeting consisted of a workshop where the partners aimed to list the problems and obstacles met during the implementation of the partnership as well as solutions to these problems. Furthermore, the partners decided the dates of the third Project Meeting in Cambridge, England. The Project Meeting was all in all a great success since the partners were able to share the achieved results, learn from each other and discuss the most successful methods in achieving the project goals.
9) Soon after project meeting in Finland the parents´association built up a Facebook site for project Immersion of Immigrant families into School Life. So far it has 18 fans, two discussions, a photo album, messages and notes.
2. What problems/obstacles have you met in the implementation of the Partnership, if any? How have these problems been they solved?
One of the biggest problems in the implementation of the partnership has been the communication in between the partners. There has been an issue about the tasks of the coordinator of the project, which is the Parents’ Association of Finland. Unfortunately, there have been problems with keeping in touch with the partners in between Project Meetings, too. As a coordinator in the beginning we were not aware of the expectations for the role of the coordinator. Expectations of the other partners were different to that extent what the coordinator was prepared to. During the second Project Meeting it was decided that the coordinator of the project creates a Facebook –profile where all partners can join in and share and access information about the progress of the project in their own and other partners’ countries.
Another big problem in the implementation of the Partnership has been how to activate parents to participate in the events and seminars. During the past year it has become particularly clear that seminars, classes and lectures are not highly attractive for parents. In comparison, the more festive events with e.g. food have been more successful to draw parents and pupils together. Therefore, it has been discussed that during the second year of the project such events will be planned which combine food and fun with more serious issues such as seminars or IT-skills classes. Also people learn in many ways: by listening, reading, doing, seeing.
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