Meeting of Project Co-ordinators at Janez Pavla II High School in Bestwina, Poland

From the 22nd to 27th April, 2004 our project co-ordinators, Mirjam Francetič and Magdalena Bobek, attended the Co-ordinators Meeting in Bestwina, Poland.

It was nice to get together again after a year.

Bestwina with its surrounding villages, has a population of about 10,000. There are four primary schools and two high schools there. Our partner school, Jana Pavla II High School, looked very nice from the outset. The teachers were very friendly and hospitable. The school had been renovated four years earlier, and was newly outfitted and very well presented. The building is separated into primary school on the first floor and high school on the second floor. In Poland the educational system does not differ from our own very much. Pupils aged from 6 to 13 attend primary school, and from 13 to 16 high school, both programs being compulsory. Then students can continue with study in lycee, technical high schools, or vocational schools. Students who complete lycee or technical high school can continue with studies at university. 253 students attend Jana Pavla II High School, and there are 28 teachers employed there.

Students prepared a presentation of EU countries.

Project Meeting at Jana Pavla II High School

We spent the first day of our visit at the school, where we were warmly welcomed by the students. In each class they had prepared a presentation of the countries of Europe. Later we took a tourist train ride through Bestwina and met with the Mayor in the Town Hall. In the afternoon we had a Project Meeting at the school. In the days following, teachers took us on tours to see the town of Krakow, the salt mines at Wieliczka, the Concentration Camp at Auschwitz and the town of Auschwitz. When I think of Poland, I recall this place of horror, which stands, untouched for almost 60 years, as a reminder of what happened there.
The last day of our stay here, where the people and the lifestyle is not very different from ours in Slovenia, was spent at the school. We had a further Project Meeting, where we picked a logo for the Project from amongst logo's designed by students from all the schools involved.