UK REPORT FOR VISIT TO THE UK DURING MOBILITY 6 -COMMENTS -FEW SELECTED PICTURES

HOSTING OF THE VISIT OF ALL 7 EUROPEAN PARTNERS AT GOLDWYN IN DECEMBER 2014 = Goldwyn school put together a programme of cultural and historical visits around places of interest in the South East of England with a day trip to the capital and workshops and activities on anti stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination in school and at the residential centre where all partners were staying. A member of the YES+ (the Kent Youth Empowerment Services+) worked closely with our PSD and Citizenship department and delivered activities during a workshop aiming at developing students’ ability to think about consequences of their choice making which was very successful and engaged students to reflect on their views and actions around stereotypes or discriminative acts observed around them and the consequences of their actions when challenged by them. He started by introducing himself and giving a brief background on YES + and a short personal testimony, which mainly focussed on negative choices he had made in the past and the consequences he received, resulting in the changes he then made to his life. He showed our visitors an exercise called the ‘shield’ and explained the objective, which enables young people to reflect on whether they are focusing on positive or negative aspects of their lives. And they all had a good discussion around this. An activity using masks followed and which explained why people decide to take on certain personas in their lives. Finally, all participants went into the mock court room and explained the whole process from getting arrested and being sentenced. They went on discussing the events of going to prison and what it would be like. With the support from the music department, a welcoming assembly was successfully performed and attended by all at Goldwyn, visitors, governors and friends of the school. The Mayor of Ashford gave the honour of visiting Goldwyn School for the first time and was presented to all our partners visiting from Europe. His speech reflected the importance of young people working together to learn to open themselves to the world around them and to feel united in their diversities. The Respect songs performed by all 8 schools involved in the project were a success and entertained everyone in the assembly. A final musical piece was put together before the end of the mobility with the voices and words from all participants to create a common RESPECT song. The latter was then sent to a local radio station and put on YouTube for the whole world to enjoy and to listen to. All participating schools had their respective Respect song put into a CD. Amongst many group work activities at the residential centre where our European visitors where staying for our young people to get to know each other, trust one another and share their cultural lifestyle and festivals around Christmas time, later in the week students took part in the painting of the Mural which is the symbol of the project. Our visitors, staff and students, stayed at the Kingswood residential centre which was an unusual setting for them since staff usually stay in hotels and students stay in hosted families. The week went on successfully well and all visitors enjoyed their stay and discovered new things along the way while working on the project and reflecting on their participation to the many activities and workshops.

Some pics of the visit to the UK Activities at the residential centre Trusting each other around the grounds of Grosvenor Hall and being careful not to miss steps The whole team shopping at Covent Garden At the British Council quarters by the Mall = Thanking the Comenius team for believing in us and giving us the grant Our Romanian team looking cool at St James’ Park Visit to Leeds Castle