Scoil Mhuire Kilvemnon

Transnational Project:

Mrs. Brett travelled to Salzburg in November 2006 to set up a project with other European schools. In Ocober 2006 Ms O ‘Connell travelled to Bath with her, to visit a national school in Shoscombe and meet up with the teachers from Kilbritain Co. Cork and Salzburg, Austria who collectively hope to do a project called “THE RED THREAD”- based on the history, folklore, traditions, music and culinary delights of each of our regions. Each child from Jnr.Infants –6th will be involved in this project at their own level. It is hoped to bring a number of students to Austria in June 07. One of the aims of this project is to break down barriers and come to the realization that we have more to unite us than divide us and that there is a common or red thread linking us all.

Our School Family i.e. Board Of Management, Parents, Staff and Pupils wish to participate in this Comenius Project in order to:
1. Open our eyes more widely to the bigger world that exists outside our little rural school gates!.
2. To learn more about the history, culture, folklore, traditions , music etc of the other participating countries in our group i.e. Austria and England through subject integration.
3. To increase awareness of the diversity of languages and dialects and the other LWULT languages spoken, by learning phrases, poems, songs etc from these countries. We also hope to promote the more common use of Irish within the participating countries.
4. With the help of a Comenius Language Assistant we hope also to introduce German as the third language of Scoil Mhuire.
5. To increase understanding and respect for those of other race and creed.
6. To highlight the integration of special needs students across Europe.
7. To promote equality in our co-educational school.
8. To encourage increased involvement of children from geographically and socio-economically disadvantaged area(s).
9. To open a window to the proximity of the global community through a.) increased use of I.T., b.) communication, c.) travel to participating schools.
10. To enhance the quality of the broad education and lifelong learning promoted in Scoil Mhuire, Kilvemnon.
11. To enable the children to disseminate their findings as the result of their three year journey of discovery.

Through exploring the traditions, history and folklore of the participating countries, ie. UK, Ireland, France, Austria and Germany we hope to help the children to discover “Who am I?”.
Although our small rural schools are geographically distanced, north, south, east and west within Europe, we intend to show that we are more the same than different.
Our joint project is important for intercultural education and counteracts hostility to strangers and racism. It supports language acquisition and language variety for all involved.

Bath Meeting October 2006
Shoscombe Primary Somerset :Host School
Gurraneasig NS, Kilbrittain, Co. Cork
Scoil Mhuire Kilvemnon, Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary (http://www.kilvemnon.net)
Volksschule Uttendorf , Salzburg, Austria (http://www.vs-uttendorf.salzburg.at)

Plan:
October to December 2006:
Each individual student’s folder containing:
Design a cover with RED background
Title: The Red Thread
Local map of each school (Country to local map)
A day in the life of each student
Map of Country
Map of locality
Map of the diocese
Photograph of each
school group
staff
individual child
History of local event(Slave trade in Bristol, 1798 Rebellion, Battle of Kinsale)
Drawing of historical event
8 songs (January to March)
8 recipes (January to March)