I.C. ALIGHIERI FORMIA-VENTOTENE, Formia, Italy

Webpage of the project: https://old.dantescuola.edu.it/ 

Our school is located in central Italy, on the Tyrrhenian coast between Rome and Naples. The school is an institution that welcomes students from 2 to 14 years, for a total of about 1100 students. Recently, the effect of school size increased the number of complexes, which appear to be in total 4 of kindergarten, three primary schools and two secondary schools. In the afternoon the school offers musical instrument courses, language certification (we are in fact both Trinity and Cambridge accredited center), the use of ICT. In the evening the school is welcomes the adults of the CPIA, particularly immigrant workers who need to learn or improve our language and obtained certification of Italian language. A kindergarten, a primary school and a secondary school, are located on the island of Ventotene and form the small Comprehensive Institute Altiero Spinelli. The island, which has less than 700 inhabitants, is a little island less than two hours by boat from Formia. Although during the summer the island is an attraction for many tourists, the winter is long and difficult, often the connections to the mainland are compromised by bad sea conditions. We like to preserve the European nature of our school providing opportunities for learning, but not confined to textbook knowledge related to Physics, Mathematics, History Science and other subjects. There is much more that connected to moral values, the teaching of what is right and what is wrong. With changing social, traditional and familial structures proof that now more than ever, educational institutions have a major part to play in the responsibility of educating children with the values that will develop their characters. This is our motivation to join this project.

Our Institution is a pioneering training center, for several years engaged in European projects (former Comenius), openness to the territory, collaboration with the State Police to combat bullying, with the Fire Service and other organizations to ensure safety of buildings and people. Many initiatives (sports, sailing courses, extracurricular courses of English and Spanish) make our school one of the most popular in the area. The school is called to participate in the construction of citizenship, teaching the rules of living and coexist in educational alliance with the family and all the local agencies. We worked in other Erasmus projects, one of them focused on breaking stereotypes and another about the music as inclusive path to learn, to combat school failure. The topic of discrimination, combating violence, bullying, enhancing the differences is one of our priorities.

The working group is composed of 7 people committed to assert the moral values of honesty, reliability and fairness; all experienced in running European projects:

• Adriana Roma, Headmistress (in charge from September 2022);
• Anna Mottola, English Teacher (Project Coordinator);

• Emmalisa Biondi, ICT and Maths Teacher;
• Paolo Miele, Maths Teacher and Geologist expert;
• MariaRosaria Palmieri, Religion teacher;
• Annamaria Riccetti, Art Teacher (organizer of school exhibition about environment)