POLAND

A little about our country and school

Location: a country in Central Europe

EU member from May 2004 Population: about 38 mln,

(2 mln living abroad, mainly in Great Britain, the USA and Ireland:

Ethnically homogeneous Major cities: Warsaw, Krakow,

Wroclaw, Gdansk and Poznan The Baltic Sea in the north,

the Tatra Mountains in the south

The constitution we adopted in 1791 as the first country in Europe (the second in the world)

The fight for freedom Well-known Poles The Pope John Paul II Lech Walesa – the Nobel Peace Prize

winner; his activities initiated the proces of political transformations in Europe (the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR)

Maria Sklodowska Curie – a Nobel Prize winner for Physics and Chemistry (she discovered two chemical elements)

Mikolaj Kopernik – the astronomer who invalidated the Ptolemaic theory; he claimed that planets revolve around the Sun, not the other way round

Here we are!

Beautiful beaches at the Baltic Sea

The Masurian Lakes – a wonder of nature. The region is a perfect place for those who look for relaxation or some thrill of water sports.

The Tatra Mountains: a fantastic place for hiking, climbing, skiing and other winter sports.

Torun

The salt mine in Wieliczka Warsaw’s Castle Square

Wooden ChurchesThe Main Square in Sandomierz

Warsaw Wroclaw

Gdansk

Katowice

Krakow

Our school is the only school in Slemien District. Our village is located in the south of Poland, in the Beskid Mountains:

70 km from the most beautiful and the oldest city in Poland – Krakow, with its magnificent Wawel Castle and the amazing Main Square

30 km from Wadowice – a town where the Pope John Paul II was born

30 km from Auschwitz Birkenau – a well-known museum and a Hitlerian death camp built during World War II

100 km from Zakopane – a town located at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, the highest mountains in Poland; full of picturesque landscapes and mountain lakes.

Our school is attended by 338 students. It comprises of two types of schools: a primary school and a junior high school. The school employs 38 teachers and 8 other workers. On average, there are about 20 students in each group.

When taking into consideration teaching results, we are one of the best schools in the region.

We have also obtained a lot of European funds (about EUR 250 000 since 2004). We cooperate with the local community, local government, organizations and parents in order to

undertake various activities concerning our students’ education and development. We have some experience in Comenius programme. We carried out a project with Turkey and

Ireland in years 2008-2010. The Project won the Good Practice Award of our National Agency.

The unemployment rate in Poland is about 13%. 30% of our graduates have difficulty in finding jobs.

(do not write unemployed, write ”a specialist on crisis management methods surplus of free time”)

Many people, often young, leave Poland to find jobs. A lot of workshops and companies in our region have

recently been closed down.

Our pupils don’t know what kind of occupation they should choose in order to have greater employment opportunities.

There is a decrease in the birth rate. It has a negative effect on the employment in our school.

About 7 000 teachers have lost their jobs in Poland this year so far.

Many teachers take part in additional training courses to improve their professional qualifications in order to fulfil the increasing requirements.

Our school’s organization and activities depend mainly on the public funds.

We strongly believe that realization of the Project will help our pupils to plan their future lives more effectively.

1. We have formed the Project Team consisting of pupils, teachers and parents.

2. We have informed our school and local community about the project objectives and activities; we have published the basic information on our school website: www.zsslemien.edu.pl

3. We have printed and displayed the banner informing about the project.4. We have prepared the Comenius Corner in our school.5. We have organized the Logo Competition.6. We have been in touch with the project coordinator and we have

prepared ourselves for the project meeting in Nicosia. 7. We have conducted the lessons concerning the terms of employability

and entrepreneurship.8. We have prepared a virtual tour of our school.

Logo competition

Preliminary evaluationWe encouraged our pupils to reflect on their initial

perceptions of Europe as a community.We checked our pupils’ understanding of the term

‘European Unity’.We scrutinized our pupils’ concepts of employability

and entrepreneurship during lessons conducted in every class.

We asked our pupils to evaluate the potential benefits awarded by this project.