“Spain 2003” is the umbrella title for an exciting project we are undertaking with our partner school, the IES Universidad Laboral in Cáceres, Extremadura. We have been fortunate in securing a Socrates grant through the British Council, which has helped significantly in the development of this year-long project.
What is the project?
We started with the simple idea that we wanted to examine the best of the Wirral and Cáceres in order to help our students understand each other’s background and culture. From there developed the imaginative idea of fusing aspects of the two regions in a “Virtual City” which we would “create” in a variety of formats: photographic images, tourist leaflets, computer simulations etc. We quickly realised that we would have to limit the concept of a “Virtual City” to a few key features or we would face an impossible task and decided to study the following:
- Shops – a comparison of the two big shopping centres
- Leisure – look at swimming pools, golf course, sports centres....
- Education – examine various aspects of the two schools (timetable, facilities, teacher-pupil relationships)
- Transport – trains, buses, cars, bikes – who uses what? What does it cost? Is it clean/efficient?
- Tourism – which aspects does each town promote the most? How do they do it? How do they compare?
- Housing – how is accommodation different and why?
- Culture – history/art/music – what is on offer?
- Ecology – how does the area relate to its environment?
Prior to our visit to Cáceres, a whole range of pupils produced fascinating PowerPoint presentations as preliminary work on the above aspects of our own region to prepare us for going to Spain to make comparisons with Cáceres. Our Biology and History Departments have contributed strongly with work on environmental issues and in-depth studies of key moments in the historical development of the two regions. Meanwhile, the English Department is busy preparing imaginative tourist guides to our “Virtual City”.
Finally, the moment arrived and we set off for Spain – or thought we did. Unfortunately, EasyJet had other ideas and kept us at Liverpool Airport for 3½ hours! A splendid opportunity for getting the bulk of extra homework thoughtfully provided by teachers out of the way, as our first photo shows!
For pictures of the trip click here
