Scuola Secondaria di 1° Grado Riccardo Monterisi

"Riccardo Monterisi" school is a lower secondary school with 783 students from 10 to 13 years and a staff of 84 teachers. The school is located on the oustskirts of Bisceglie, a town in Southern Italy which is 30 minutes by train from Bari, Province of Puglia, Italy. Like many schools in the area, it caters for several students of various nationalities every year and it pays a special attention to the inclusion of students with disabilities or students with learning and socio-cultural disadvantages. The school is equipped with a gym, an auditorium, an IT lab, a language lab and wi-fi connection. It is one of the few schools in Italy with two musical sections where pupils learn to play various instruments (piano, guitar, clarinet, violin, cello, flute, trumpet) and it has a school orchestra formed by more than 100 pupils. The school orchestra takes part in national music contests every year and they have been awarded many national prizes. The urban context in which the school is located is mainly populated by middle-class families, with school-age children. There aren’t many public facilities where children can do sports or meet with pairs, therefore the school tries to compensate for this lack with a wide range of after school projects. School lessons start at 8.00 a.m. and finish at 1 p.m. from Monday to Saturday, but there are a lot of activities organized in the afternoon, mainly focused on sports, science, theatre, music and foreign languages. Pupils from the musical courses attend their music lessons in the afternoon from 3.00 p.m. to 7 p.m. The school also encourages projects on environmental, social and cultural values, safety on the Internet and sustainable mobility. All these activities are aimed at involving and motivating children to help them feel an active part in their learning process as well as in the social context, promoting attitudes of integration and non-discrimination towards different cultures, ethnic groups, genres and religions. Therefore, the school plays a crucial role in supporting the growth of young people positively, developing in them a vision of the world based on solidarity, responsibility and active citizenship. The phenomenon of strong migratory flows affecting our Country, specially the south, makes it essential for our school to adopt an intercultural perspective, to promote dialogue and comparison between cultures, to adopt integration strategies using new teaching methods and using new technologies, to educate pupils on peaceful coexistence and respect, and lead them to appreciate diversity as a value. Since 2011 our school has started a process of "internationalisation", attaching great importance to European partnerships (2 Comenius projects, 2 Erasmus + KA2 and 1 Erasmus KA1 projects) and eTwinning community to innovate teaching and to work on projects in which pupils can participate in an active and collaborative way, "learn to learn" and also increase their skills in a foreign language and deal with different cultures. Our school has also got funds for the following PON FSE projects which will be run run in the next school year: Italian “Prima pagina” 30h (journalism) Italian : “Libri...amoci in scena” 60 h. (drama) Science: “Di che regno sei?” 30 h. Science: “Si scrive rifiuto si pensa risorsa” 30 h. Maths:” Geometria e realtà: due facce della stessa medaglia” 30 h. Maths: “Laboratorio del futuro: pensiero computazionale, coding & robotica” 60 h (coding and robotics). In relation to the above mentioned projects, we see in positive way the possibility of hosting EVS volunteers at our school to help teachers and pupils to foster reflection and dialogue on the themes of European citizenship and stimulate in young people the ability to communicate and express opinions in a foreign language.