Classes' profiles - Gimnazjum no 8

Okay I guess it is high time (if not a bit late) to introduce ourselves in more details ... we've been writing these things about education or different holidays here in Poland but we did not write much about ourselves. By now you should have seen the short film of class 3B at our school but wouldn't it be great to get to know your penpals a little bit closer?? It's cool that we prepare these projects and me as a teacher hope that students on both sides have a bit fun with it but I also think that we might have lost a little bit of this personal touch on the way. That is why I have decided to add a post strictly about US - the students and the school both in groups and individually... Let's start with the groups then...

1. Class 3B - from this class there are 16 students who take part in this project. It is Marcin R. , Maciek K., Kasia L., Kasia M. Maja L., Maja Ch., Dorota K., Natalia W.,Magda K., Marta Sz., Dorota K., Martyna R., Eunika W., Milena M., Dominika S., and Adam L. I teach English to most of them but some are taught by a friend of mine - Ms. Pajak. This is a group of high-spirited ambitious (at times ;o)) students who entered Gimnazjum no 8 three years ago. I do remember them from the first classes - all so small and scared... and look at them now ;o) So grown up and sooo tall ... incredible. Should I admit openly that I like you guys?? Probably not... :o) You are lazy at times and we had some difficult times and we still are going to have some but it's been nice teaching you and working with you... you're a total mixture of ambitions/characters/ behaviours and different needs and moods. Some of you are too lazy and some not lazy enough ;o) But I am thankful that you all wanted to take part in this project and no matter what I hope that we will go to Italy together ;o) Class 3B is a class with so called DELF class (Diplôme d'Etudes en Langue Française) which means they learn two not one language like the rest of the school - they have three hours of English and three hours of French. In the third year they take the DELF exam if they wish to. Apart from that they have all the rest of the subjects like all the other students: Polish, Maths, Biology, Geography,History, Physics, Chemistry, PE, Religious Studies, Social studies (classes about governments and politics etc), Music, Information Technology and Art. So quite a lot as you see. Generally speaking 3B is a class where students like each other and support each other - if they make things up they all try to convince me that it's THIS not THAT way... and it's nice to see them stick together. Of course I see some rivarly and some dislikes among them but just in a healthy way. Sometimes I have a feeling that I shouldn't let them feel so 'free' and 'relaxed' during my classes but what can you do when we spend so much time discussing this project and making things up for it?? ;o)

2. Class 3S - from this class I have nine students who take part in our project and these are Marta D., Karolina S., Renata B., Monika W.,Paulina S.,Ula J.,Ewa F.,Klaudia D.,Natalia D. And what can I say?? The girls are very dependable and reasonable... I get the feeling that soon they will turn into really nice and full grown women just as they are nice and friendly girls. As students they are on the average. Sometimes hardworking and sometimes lazy ... just normal. But they are very smiley and very funny so I guess we get on well together. I know that they can do more than they are doing now and I see bright future for some of them.

3. Class 2A - for the time being only five girls take part in the project and these are Weronika, Ewa, Dorota, Magda and Paulina. They are all very nice and helpful so I hope they'll do well and soon become familiar with the idea of the project and will start working on it full time. Right now they are working on preparing the Fashion Show which will be held soon after Easter. In the teacher's eye all of these girls are high-spirited and responsible. Weronika is loud and smiley and full of positive energy and eagerness to help and be seen everywhere, Ewa is rather reserved but very nice too (she's got a massive hobby of horse riding ;o)), Magda is very nice and rather shy but she can be talkative at times too ;o) And Dorota is very smiley and ambitious and finally Paulina - very nice and quiet girl and a very good student too. They all are good students ;o).

So I hope I gave you a very rough idea of the students who take part in the project this year... but I do realize you'd like more to see them than to read about them ;o) So here it is: a slideshow with many many pictures of these students of mine who were willing to devote of their time and some of their energy to work with me on the project. And one more thing... Class 3B would like to invite you on a Forum that was created especially for our cooperation - click on this link : http://www.gim8.ddl2.pl/ and it will automatically take you to our forum - 3B students are waiting for you there so hope you'll visit them soon!!! ;o) And now enjoy the photos!! Hugs from Poland xoxo ;o

Our trip to Venice

Dear friends,
in this post we'd like to tell you about our school trip to Venice.
Here's the diary of those excing days supplied with some pics.
Come with us and...enjoy the trip!

8th March
We met at the train station of Saronno at 6.30 a.m ( sob!). There we caught the train to Milan . At "Milano Centrale" we got on the train to Venice.
Three hours later we got to the town on the lagoon. Then we reached our hotel, visited our rooms and left the luggage.

In the afternon of the same day we visited : San Marco Square, the Ducal Palace and Rialto Bridge. In the evening, after dining at the restaurant, we had a walk around the city centre. At night we had a great time all together in our rooms.

9th March
We got up at 7.15, had breakfast, then we met at the reception.
We visited three important islands of the lagoon: Torcello ( famous for the embroidery handcrafts), Burano ( famous for its typical coloured houses) and Murano ( the island of the fine glassware).
At 7 p.m we got back to the hotel and had dinner at the restaurant.
In the evening we crossed the lagoon by ferry and returned to San Marco Square.
Finally, we ended the day partying in our rooms!!

10th March (the last day)
We got up early, packed our luggage and letf the hotel (sigh!).
The tourist bit of Venice continued...with the visit of some splendid churches. Santa Maria Gloriosa, San Rocco, Santa Maria dei Miracoli e san Zaccaria.
At 6 p.m we got the train to Milan and finally reached Saronno at 10 p.m.
At the end of these glorious days we were tired but happy for the ...unforgettable experience.
Good bye
Chiara Longhin and Alessia Villa

The "New Legnani"

Hi friends,
it's been a long time since I last added a post of the Italian side of the project.
February was short but full of demanding tasks.
Our students got their 1st-term report cards and some of them had to attend remedial classes or tutorials to recover their gaps.
The 30 Italian students wrote to their pals describing their hometowns.
The 3 B sent us a great video about their "School Life". It is very well done and involving. There is a sort of "frame" showing the school, the students before, during lessons and at lunch time. The "inner story" is composed by some concerts held in the classroom reproducing the music of famous pop and rock groups. My students liked it so much! they identified with their pals and felt them closer.

But there is another event worth mentioning on our blog: the opening of the new seat of our Liceo. For the students of "classico" and "linguistico" the bell rang in the brand new building on the 26th of February and two weeks later, on the 7th of march, the official opening took place. After 30 years of wanderings the "Legnani" has a seat of its own.
So, dear friends, you can imagine the solemnity of the day, the emotion of our headmaster, the pride of the Major of Saronno, the grave-looking President of the Province announcing that 6200000 euros were spent "for the future generations".
The new headquarters is a modern well equipped structure with two language labs, two chemical labs, a huge gym, an elegant assembly hall, a dome in modern style which has already become the symbol of our school.
Unfortunately the "socio", one the three courses of studies which makes " the Liceo Legnani" is still in the old building and the separation isn't temporary.
The new seat isn't flexible enough to adapt to the rising number of students that enrol for one of the three courses.
No problem of course for those who can't breath the air of novelty. The teachers of the "second branch" are flexible as they believe in the pedagogical maxim which says " adapt to each situation you face, don't adopt any fixed behaviour to be changed by Place or Time".
Milton wrote that " the mind is its own place and in itself ", with our students, " we can make a Heaven of it".

Good-bye for now
Gemma

Some news from Plock

Dzien dobry my friends ;o) It's been a while since the last post and so many things have happened... We'd like to update you with some of our doings at school. So first of all we made a small change in the participants of the project on our side. This was entirely my decision as a teacher and supervisor of the project and it should have been made a long time ago. Namely I decided to change five students who took part in the project and take five different students from a younger class (2A) to replace the old ones. So this caused the change in pen pals couples. From now on the new penpalling couples will be: Weronika and Riccardo, Paulina and Andrea, Dorota and Davide, Magda and Michele and finally Ewa and Daniele. Hope these students will get to know each other soon and the cooperation will continue as smoothly as always. The next important thing was the Carnival Ball for the third year students which was organized both by the students of the last year of gimnazjum and their parents. It looks like a small prom... a time for dancing and having fun with all of the classmates. It takes place always half a year before they all graduate from gimnazjum and each of them starts walking on his or her own path of life. Unfortunately life is brutal enough and I couldn't go and see my third years on the ball but they did mail me over some pictures that you can see on the slide. In my humble opinion they all looked great and I must say that it truly touched me to see them wearing these fancy clothes, make ups, high-heels (just the girls fortunately hihih ;o)) and guys in suits - all posh and so grown-up... and just imagine that when we met each other three years ago they all looked like kids... times goes so fast (sigh). This is the slideshow with some pictures from the ball...

Probably I shouldn't say this openly but I do really like these kids and I must say that noone really thinks of this side of teachers' work... some of us truly like their jobs and their students and it is so hard to say goodbye to them sometimes. This year will be hard for me too. I'll be saying goodbye to four groups of 3rd years. I am pretty sure they feel happy to start something fresh and new which will lead them to adulthood but saying goodbye to their own schoolmates and some of their teachers won't be easy for them too. So this is exactly the period we're getting into... the last couple of months of school for most of my students and for most of these who take part in this project. It won't be easy as all of them will fight to prepare the best for the final exams that they take at the end of April (so just a month from now!!!). We are in the middle of the 'hottest' period at school for those students who graduate. Two important events have just happened...namely the 'small prom' and a preparatory exam which the 3rd years took on the 23rd and 24th of February. Most of the students who take part in our project had to write this exam last week. The exam was applied mainly to show them all the procedures of the REAL exam that they will take in April and to let them check their knowledge both in humanistic and scientific subjects. The exam cosists of two papers which they write in two following days. On the first day they pass the humanistic part of the exam which is a test containing elements of knowledge of the Polish language and literature, History, Art, Music and knowledge of the country's political system and government etc, the second part is the scientific one which containts elements of Maths, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology and Geography. The students had the preparatory exam which looks similar to the main one in April and they all said that the humanistic part was far easier than the scientific one... Now what they have ahead is learning, learning and learning as those who want to be admitted to the best high schools in Plock not only need to have a high level of points from the final exam, but also very good final marks. In Poland all high schools, while recruiting the students for the 1st year, take into account both the marks from the final exam and the marks from a couple of subjects... for instance the highest level of points from the exam to achieve is 100, then they can get e.g. 10 points if they have '5' as their final mark in Polish, 8 points if they have '4' as their final mark and so on and on... And each high school sets a different level of points that the student needs to have to be addmited to this school. In Plock students mostly want to be admitted to three high schools: Malachowski High School, then Jagiello High School or Maria Dąbrowska High School also known as the 3rd High School. If you go to the bottom of our blog you'll find all the websites of these schools. These are the three most popular high schools in our city. There are a couple of more to choose from but majority of students decide between these three. I personally graduated from Malachowski High School some years ago and I have to say that these were the best years of my life ;o) Each of these high schools has an unique atmosphere and although there has been a quiet rivarly among these schools for many years now, the students like each other any way - no matter which school they choose the bonds they made in Gimnazjum is a strong one and often keeps them together. Many students who were in one class of Gimnazjum end up in the same class of high school. Hopefully they won't forget the teachers who guided them all through the three years of Gimnazjum ;o) And as far as our project is concerned I hope to push it a little bit further soon. Last week we have completed point B1 of our project namely "Introducing Italy and Poland". My students have prepared many presentations of different regions of Poland which are worth seeing when you visit our country. I will try to post some of these presentations here soon. Now we entered the next point of the project and my students are currently working on preparing the presentations of Polish cuisine and fashion. One group (3B) has just started to prepare a Fashion Show which will be recorded on a video camera and sent to you at the beginning of April (I hope ;o)) and the second group (3S) is working on presenting Polish cuisine - they were assigned into groups and they will meet at home and record for you a Cooking Programme ... they will show you step by step how to cook or bake some easy Polish declicacies... So that's the plan for now... we shall see how fast we can make it as the students have plenty of other responsibilities at school and the exam to think of. But surely we will try to do the best we can ;o) One more thing... I have created an online calendar of my school so you can check it up and see what both the teachers and the students of Gimnazjum no 8 are up to during the second term of 2006/2007 school year. I also added the National Holidays and days off for the students and so on... You will find the link to the calendar at the bottom of our blog ;o) Soon I will be adding the events from the school life of students who take part in the projects... like their tests and classworks and other importants things they would like to share so keep your eyes wide open ;o) That would be all for now folks ;o) hope to hear from you soon and greetings from Poland...