On 21 October, we welcomed teachers and students from our partner schools in Hamm (D), Città di Castello (I), Wroc³aw (PL), Czêstochowa (PL) and Iaºi (RO) at our grammar school in Orlová (CZ). This was the first official meeting of all participating members on Socrates / Comenius 1 project and also the beginning of our common work on project task – “Migration in Europe“.

The first subtopic we dealt with was life and work of Jan Ámos Komenský (Comenius), a famous “teacher of nations“, who was forced to leave his native country and to spend the rest of his life abroad, and is thus an example of an emigrant, but also a great personality of our history who we are proud of.

The individual groups prepared some materials in advance and concentrated on Komenský´s stay in their countries and also the impact of his work and ideas on the educational system. At the end of the IW, all students made a large collage about Komenský and each group presented the results of their work.

However, work on the project wasn´t the only purpose of the IW – our guests came to get to know our culture, lifestyle and the place where we live as well. One day we set up for a trip to Rožnov pod Radhoštìm, Štramberk and Fulnek where we visited the museum of J. A. Komenský, another one we visited coal-mining museum in Ostrava and its city centre, we also went to Karviná to see the beautiful square and recently rebuilt chateau. Of course, we didn´t forget to walk round Orlová and to have a look at the old town centre with a church, which were unfortunately damaged due to coal mining. The weather during the IW was fantastic and although it was almost the end of October, we could enjoy a lot of sunshine (which we have ordered in advance J ).

To sum it up, we not only managed to work out the first project subtopic, but we practiced comunication in English (but other languages were also used), got a lot of new experience, some of us met their “old“ friends and others made new friendships which will be further developed via e-mail.