Minutes of Focus Group MAT/PRI 05.02.2015

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European schools system

European schools system is like a never-ending maze of paperwork and bureaucracy.

It’s as if they believe that the more forms you fill out, the smarter you become. Secretary general and deputy secretary general are too busy worrying about their pensions and summer vacations to actually produce anything useful.

It’s a system where children are just tiny cogs in a big bureaucratic machine, and education takes a backseat to administrative tasks.

It’s time for a major overhaul, because right now, the European schools system is about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

  1. Welcome and introduction by Sandra
  2. Warm up: Use the space of the room to make groups according to your preference of “Tea” or “Coffee”
  3. Icebreaker: Use the space of the room to represent North /East/South/West of Europe and go to your place of birth “London” or “Frankfurt” or “Paris” or “Malta” with regard to the other people in the room. Please tell us your name and a local greeting.

Task 1 group:

Two years from now – what has changed for the better? What are our goals? – Answers yellow cards

  1. Less stress (7x)
  2. Moins de fatigue, moins de peur
  3. Working with happy children
  4. Time to work and play, more playing time, less or no non productive classroom time, more efficient teaching, easier timetable within classes, more time with pupils, more sport lessons for the classes (2x), only morning hours for primary and maternel, time at school 100% value, régularité
  5. Work-life balance, school-life balance, home + work time balance, better work-life balance, more time with my children, more equilibrium in day, more balanced days, , famille réunie, a lot of time for children, more time, use of quality time, more quality time (2x), temps mieux organisé
  6. Apprentissage des langues, language skills, meilleure éducation, sustain equal multilinguism
  7. Plus de régularité dans les horaires de repas, less waste in cantine, plus de temps pour les repas de midi
  8. Tous réunis, knitting together of school community, nous nous connaissons mieux
  9. Better facilities, nicer facilities, plus confortable, better place to live, better transport, one stop shop bus school CPE, better pick-up place for the kids, moved closer to the school
  10. Sécurité (2x)

Task 2 group: 

What is the question we need to ask to get to the result we want as stated on the yellow cards?: Better use of time and facilities?

Task 3 for each participant individually: 

  1. For better Use of time Time: Please use the white timetable sheet with Monday-Friday.
  2. For better Use of facilities: Please give us your ideas on a white sheet – one idea per card

Task 4 Vernissage: 

Please have a look at all the answers of the people in the room

Task 5 Memory:

Make clusters of similar answers

  1. Better Timetables
  2. Better use of Facilities
  1. Activities
    1. In-school : More language classes in P1-2-3, reinforce teaching of sport, music, art, second sport teacher (for all the classes, sport during the whole year), better integration with environmental activities, more cultural activities, plus d’activités artistiques et musicales et mieux organisées, activités sportives les après-midis
    2. After school : Plus d’activités périscolaires, cheaper periscolaire activities, more periscolaire sessions for popular activities, open school after school hours to use music classes, sport classes, language classes, no discrimination (APEEE member or ot) for periscolaire activities, services on-site may be necessary to deal with slight mismatch in Pri & Nur timetable on short days for Primary.
  2. CPE including Garderie : CPE for all, garderie pendant les après-midis pour toutes les categories, Garderie available for all children, open CPE to all category for emergency situations, garderie pour toutes les categories, périscolaire et CPE pour tous.
  3. Exchange : more cultural exchange between sections to understand diversity, more interaction amongst language groups.
  4. Time : a balanced day with longer working sessions in the morning and breaks at times which allow this, long days to be shorter as classroom time at the end of the day is difficult to use productively, horaire moins divisé en petits morceaux et pas trop de déplacements pour les enfants, improve the teaching-planning-hours to give a better quality time to the teacher, hours on long days to be reduced, coordination of 3 cycles of end time mat 15 min prior to primary end.
  5. Transport : More ways to reach the school (1 road for 1000 families), to change if possible the car traffic around the school so far it creates stress, meilleure connexion au transport public, better coverage of transport (bus).
  6. Canteen : Canteen improved more surveillance needed, surveillance à la cantine, plus de temps pour le déjeuner à la cantine, plus de temps à la cantine, no surveillance for teachers in cantine maybe educateurs, less surveillance in canteen and before school, less stress in canteen (more time), more toilets for primary canteen and facilities for hand washing.
  7. Food : better quality of food, quality food, more time for snack, autonomy to professionals to organize the rhythm of their class (to include L2 + snacks), canteen in the school every day.
  8. Surveillance : surveillance avant et après les cours, less surveillances (before and after school in canteen), less surveillance (no surv. Before school start ?), Teachers = teach Supervisors = supervise Coordinators = coordinate Directors = direct.

Task 6 Small working groups

Break up in working groups on the different Timetables options. Work out Pro (green paper) and Counter (blue paper) – arguments for each model

Task 7 Group presentation:

Present different Timetable Models and respective arguments. Give room for question and answers

  1. 3 propositions de jours réguliers (9h-16h du lundi au vendredi, fin possible à 12h le vendredi) :
    1. Avantages : régularité, in case of long days art, music and sport in the afternoon, 1 hour break for lunch and recreation.
    2. Inconvénients : 2 hours break is too long, canteen everyday unless quality of fodd improves, long day for nursery.
  2. 6 propositions pour 3 jours longs (sauf en MAT 2 jours longs) et 2 jours courts (sauf MAT 3 jours courts) :
    1. Avantages : teachers less tired at the end of the day and have time and energy to prepare the next days, children less tired at the end of the day, it might be possible to use the time more productively, more afternoons would allow more classes to do sport/swim at a more suitable time for the children (+ teacher), earlier start = more effectiveness, shorter afternoons means more possibility for afterenoon activities/recreations.
    2. Inconvénients : 3 o’clock could be difficult for early pick up, leave Friday afternoon for early weekend start (at least before holidays), children are less effective in the afternoon, higher cost (canteen, teacher surveillance).
  3. 7 propositions pour statu quo (MAT 1 jour long, 4 jours courts ;PRI : 2 jours longs, 3 jours courts)
    1. Avantages : MAT seulement une journée longue, transport garanti, short day Friday.
    2. Inconvénients : short day Friday, MAT have lunch in class on long days.
  4. 9 propositions pour 5 jours de longueur égale (7h30 – 13h ou 8h-13h30 ou 8h30 – 14h) :
    1. Avantages : meilleure concentration, plus de temps à la maison pour manger/activités, régularité.
    2. Inconvénients : déconnecté du système luxembourgeois, CPE tous les après-midis (coût plus élevé), coût transport, début trop tôt, trop d’interruptions pendant la journée, trop de snacks.

Task 8 Round table:

Please give one priority for the timetable models: E.g. “Regularity” “Early hours”

Synthèse des propos tenus :

  • Effective use of the hours that we have in order to maximize the learning process of our children (2x), Qualité du temps d’enseignement pour les professeurs
  • Régularité des horaires (10x)
  • Prise en compte des besoins des différents cycles (MAT-P2, P3-5) (3x)
  • Gestion du stress
  • Respect du rythme biologique des enfants (3x), concentration des élèves (2x)
  • Difficulté de prendre en compte toutes les contraintes
  • Besoin de se comparer davantage à des écoles internationales qu’à des écoles locales
  • Début des cours plus tôt (8 x)
  • Proper nutrition
  • Parallélisme avec le système scolaire luxembourgeois
  • Horaires pas trop fractionnés pour les cours.

Task 9: Lunch

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Aim of the European Schools

Educated side by side, untroubled from infancy by divisive prejudices, acquainted with all that is great and good in the different cultures, it will be borne in upon them as they mature that they belong together. Without ceasing to look to their own lands with love and pride, they will become in mind Europeans, schooled and ready to complete and consolidate the work of their fathers before them, to bring into being a united and thriving Europe.

Marcel Decombis, Head of European School, Luxembourg between 1953 and 1960