Children at Yester Primary School used a blog to exchange information with children at a Finnish primary school over the course of a school year. The theme was 'A Healthy Passport'.
About the project schools
Yester Primary is situated in the picturesque village of Gifford, close to Haddington, in East Lothian. The school has seven straight classes from P1 to P7 and the current roll is around 165. There is also a nursery with around 30 children.
Kuvansin koulu Primary is situated in Central Finland, in the village of Kuvansi, close to the town of Varkaus. The school has six classes, from age 6 to 12, with a current roll of 109.
How the project started
This project was developed by Michael Purves and Fiona Edwards in May 2007, and started as a result of Fiona Edwards’ participation in the International Masterclass event in 2006. The headteacher, Dorothy Hilsley, arranged for both teachers to have time out of class before the summer holiday to look into creating links with another country.
We looked at the eTwinning website and discovered that it would be relatively easy to register and make contact with many schools in Finland who were already looking for links abroad.
We decided to create a blog link between two classes in Yester and two classes in the link school. The project would be loosely based on the work of Woodhill Primary School, Glasgow, who had previously created a blog linking themselves with a French school. We researched various Finnish towns and schools, and approached two, by email, to see if they might be interested in linking with Yester.
Within a couple of days, both schools had expressed a wish to create a link, so, after discussion, Kuvansin koulu school, in the village of Kuvansi, near to Varkaus, was chosen as Yester’s link school. This school had a similar roll and situation within the local community to Yester. Jyrki Ikonen, the Finnish teacher, quickly agreed to our proposal to create blog links, and the project, entitled 'A Healthy Passport', was registered on the eTwinning portal on 31 May 2007.
Project aims
The aims of the project were clear: pupils from both schools would exchange information over the course of a school year, starting in August 2007, based on a predetermined and agreed set of criteria which linked to both health and sport. By using blogs, we hoped that the project would allow pupils to:
- become more skilled in using ICT in the school context
- become more aware of Scotland’s place within Europe
- increase their ability to be successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens, and, of course, to become more effective contributors.
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