Is the ideal school system attainable?
We obviously can't create the ideal school system without knowing about other school systems and how other countries aproach this crucial topic. So in order to find the ideal school system, we as a team ,decided to interview various teachers from various countries going from our own country , Portugal , all the way to Italy, Romania and Greece.
This was a truly remarkable experience, we got the opportunity to see how each school system works from a different perspective, a teacher's perspective.
Italy
The Italian school system is somewhat similar to ours:
Lessons usually start around the second week of September and finish around the second week of June, there are school breaks only for Christmas and Easter, with most holidays being concentrated in the summer, and schools are closed on national holidays.
But there are also some differences:
Lessons start at 8.00am/8.30 am which usually last 5 hours, from Monday to Saturday. This means most kids come back home for lunch, therefore, there is no canteen in most Italian schools.
The school year is divided into two terms, 'quadrimestri'. The autumn term starts in September and runs until the middle of January. Spring term begins in the middle of January and runs until the beginning of June. At the end of each term, students receive a 'pagella', a report card with their grades which may vary from 10 (excellent) to 1 (impossible to assess), with passing being 6. Today, report cards are frequently issued in automated form and may be mailed to parents/students or made accessible on a special section of the school website.
Greece
The Greek educational system is mainly divided into three levels: primary, secondary and tertiary, with an additional post-secondary level providing vocational training. Primary education is divided into kindergarten lasting one or two years, and primary school spanning six years (ages 6 to 12).
Secondary education happens in Gymnasios ( 3 years, starting at age 12 after 6 years of Elementary School. Compulsory for all children, it is followed by the non-mandatory Lyceum (ages 15–18) for students with academic aspirations, or the Technical Vocational Educational School (TEL) for students who prefer vocational training.
Higher Tertiary education is provided by Universities, Technological Universities (T.E.I.) and Academies which primarily cater for the military and the clergy.
Romania
We found out that the Romanian school system is similar to the other ones we already had interviewed and doesn't have any major differences.
We also had the opportunity to upgrade our knowledge and get another point a view about our own school system by interviewing our school headmaster Doutor Álvaro Santos.
And finally we interviewed CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning ) expert and Teacher Trainer, Professor Maria Ellison, Assistant Professor of Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (FLUP), since she knows a lot about the Portuguese and British school systems, giving us a better ideia about each one of them.
Her expertise also gave us a lot of knowledge about the CLIL project, something that is already being implemented in our school and in a lot of other european countries.
This approach involves learning subjects such as history, geography, managerial skills/concepts or others, through an additional language. It can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and helping children develop a positive attitude towards themselves as language learners.
"It can provide effective opportunities for pupils to use their new language skills now, rather than learn them now for use later. It opens doors on languages for a broader range of learners, nurturing self-confidence in young learners and those who have not responded well to formal language instruction in general education. It provides exposure to the language without requiring extra time in the curriculum, which can be of particular interest in vocational settings."
We are certain that this methodology should be implemented worldwide since we can only benefit from it and our school CLIL students' performance in several areas is proving it.
This was only our first step towards achieving the ideal school system ,
Stay tuned
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