Hungary Autumn 2011 BE PART OF THE LEGEND

Beginnings of a legend … On 1 st September our school held an opening ceremony of the new school year in the assembly hall of the local cultural community center with the participation of all the students of our school, some of their parents as well as the mayor of the town, the representatives of the municipal educational committee, the management and teachers of our high school, the headmistress of the local primary school and journalists of the local press. I took the opportunity to announce the launch of our Project by giving general information about the two happy years’ of work ahead of us … The local independent media first reported about our Project in an article on the local website in the days following the opening ceremony of 1 st September emphasizing the great opportunity of having won €20,000 for our educational institute in order to improve international contacts, students’ and employees’ English skills as well as to involve parents and those interested in the implementation of the Project. The journalist also promised a longer article to be published about the realization of the Project in the following period.

Project Inauguration September 1

Hungarian legends in Hungarian class In Hungarian Literature and History classes from 12 th to 23 rd September the children read the legends in Hungarian and discussed the historical back- ground of the castle legends with reference to the history of Hungary, which gave them opportunity to revise material done during their primary school and previous year studies. Many students were interested in the topic partly because their favorite subjects are History and Literature but also because of the surprisingly unusual thematic approach in our education system based on syllabi determined in chronological order of historical events or authors (in Literature). Thanks to NÓRA the Hungarian and History teacher.

Hungarian lesson for Class 11

Translation Competition In September our school started the Project Activities by choosing the 5 Legends to be dealt with. Students’ suggestion was to get to know and popularize the legends in the official language of the Project, in English. Moreover, students also suggested organizing a team translation competition for appropriate rewards: good grades in English, of course. These suggestions were reasonable to be accepted and on 8 th September 75 students of 4 classes forming 20 teams participated in the team competition. The event was successful and very popular, especially among our youngest pupils, Class 9 and 10.

Teams in Class 11 Students have formed teams of 4 for the best result possible …

Teams in Class 9 Our youngest students …

… and our oldest students, Class 12.

The Annual Kick-Off Meeting in Budapest on September 22 organized by Tempus, the Hungarian National Agency

Meeting at our NA On 22 nd September our school was invited to the Annual Kickoff Meeting organized by the Hungarian National Agency called Tempus Közalapítvány (Tempus Public Funds) at their HQ located in Budapest. The three lecturers introduced to the representatives of the winning schools the main ideas and the subtleties of how to organize and implement the project. Most of the conversation and lots of questions were, of course, about the financial issues of projects with a great deal of reference to the experiences of previous LLP Comenius Projects. The meeting was part of a series of lectures and seminars how to follow up the work done in project and highly instructive.

Hunt for Words on the Internet Between the 15 th and 30 th Sept several groups of our students collected words to compel a project vocabulary about Castles, Chivalry, Knights, Tournaments, Legendary and Mythical Creatures assisted by the German, English and I.T. teachers (Many thanks to Erzsi and Tamás). The first vocabulary was in 3 languages: Hungarian, English and German because students have the opportunity to study these languages in our high school. However, soon we extended the vocabulary by translating them into the languages of the partner countries: Polish, Italian, Finnish and also Spanish. Of course, students did not always find the appropriate words on the Internet but most of the vocabulary proved to be correct.

An unusual P. E. lesson On 4 th October our children participated (great appreciations to our Director Mr Gergely Mocsári and his wife, our P.E. teacher, Aunt Manyi, as well as thanks to the our form teachers) in an outdoor program which included a 90-minute walking challenge from our school to one of the nearest villages as well as a playful Physical Education period. Some strong volunteers had the great opportunity to find out what it is like to climb up to the height of castle walls, which they later depicted as a unique experience in their lives: twenty-three of our students were brave and physically strong enough to enjoy the facilities of the local Tó Hotel Adventure Park, where you can climb up to a ten-meter height and probably have the time of your life... when coming back to the ground.

Tó Hotel Adventure Park in Bánk: how difficult it is to attack a castle... The challenge Test of bravery

The Tó Hotel is very near …

… in action!

… in mid-air and on the ground.

… time together without computers.

Creation of the Project Logo

Logos for the Exhibition in October

Thanks to Our Students … Some of the logos have a strong reference to Hungary.

Imagination... Ideas … Creativity

Tradition and fantasy world

39 Students created their Logos

Everybody voted to choose the best ones…

The runner-ups … Congratulations!

… and the WINNER is …

Exhibition on the Corridor

Helping hands …

More helping hands with the toy!

Matchboxes and a castle …

New castles have been created…

THANKS TO OUR STUDENTS !

The Winners and our Manager

The Board: joint effort of our school, students, teachers, parents and a local multinational company

EXHIBITION ABOUT THE PARTNER COUNTRIES On 18 th October with the help of Classes 9, 10 and 11 we made an Exhibition to present the Partner Countries. Students had been asked to collect information, photos, flags, maps, the coat of arms and registration plates of cars of the Partner Countries, and some of the best photos and maps were printed at a local company so that the maps would be big enough to look better on the white board, which is placed in the hall of our school. On the board you can also see the translations of the Hungarian legends and the vocabulary of chivalry and castles with illustrations.

One of our aims is to present the national flags … One student of ours has found this colorful map of Europe on Wikipedia.

Polska is being placed on the board …

Castle legends are interesting, motivating and remind you of so many things …