Focus on Health – PO WER

The idea of the project ”Focus on health” appeared among a group of teachers and students of Complex of Upper Primary Schools in Chojna before the beginning of Covid-19. The research of Health Behaviour in School-aged Children shows that the opinions of the teenagers should be used to create preventic programmes and to eliminate differences in health care.The research in ZSP in Chojna included individual and group interviews as well as surveys. It was supposed to check problems and worries of young people, ways of solving them and leisure activities. 150 students participated in the research. According to the community of ZSP in Chojna the health education is not treated in a proper way in the school education systems. In most EU countries in a school curriculum subject called health education does not exist. Some topics of it are implemented in other subjects, most often Biology and P.E. Covid-19 pandemic is changing the situation. ZSP in Chojna has started changes in its attitude to health education many years ago. The school participated in an Erasmus+ project ”Health education for life” in 2014-2016. The project was rewarded by European Commission and called a success story.

Participants of ”Focus on health” project will acquire or improve their knowledge and abilities allowing them to take care of their physical and psychological health in an effective way. Participants will prepare exercises which will be included into a workbook and health education Internet platform.
The project also aims at:
– development of key competences,
– getting to know the consequences of bad eating habits,
– development of the knowledge and abilities of hygiene of labour and relaxation,
– deepening the knowledge of healthy lifestyle and its influence on good learning results,
– development of the ability of copying with stress,
– acquiring the ability of problem solving and social and emotional well-being,
– integration of the youth from partner countries and Polish groups,
– increasing organisational skills among project participants,
– getting to know culture and traditions of partner countries,
– development of the ability to communicate efffectively using foreign languages.

There will be 40 students plus teachers from ZSP in Chojna participating in the project, students from host schools from Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Hungary. Polish participants will be chosen through the transparent, respecting equal chances, recruitment process. Participation of students with disabilities will be ensured. Students will be involved in all stages of the project. They will take part in all activities in preparatory period as well as during mobilities, They will also be responsible for management issues, promotion and dissemination of project results.Preparatory activities will include linguistic, cultural, psychological, pedagogical and specialistic preparation. There will be four 5-day mobilities involving ten students and two teachers each. Before the mobilities three preparatory visits were planned. During the mobilities all groups will be comparing health education in partner countries and checking the consequences of Covid-19 on life of young people. The rest of issues will be different for each group, so that in the end of the project it would be possible to get overall results.The evaluation of the project will take place after preparatory period, after the mobilities and in the end of the project. The results of the project will include health education exercises, powerpoint presentations of activities in each country, powerpoint presentation of the whole project and educational films helping to learn basic words and expressions in Polish.

Project results will be disseminated on local, national and international levels by sending and receiving institutions.

J. Cezary Salamończyk