We held our preliminary meeting in Poole at the end of October 2002.
It was a fairly exciting morning at Heathrow meeting 7 flights in about two and a half hours but..... all went well.
The hotel was fine and on the Friday everybody had a good day at Poole Grammar School.
Delegates had a very busy day attending lessons most of the day.
The Mayor of Poole met everybody in the Headmaster's study at breaktime and this was followed by a "mock" video conference which went well.
On Saturday we held our formal meeting at the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Poole.
During the afternoon we visited Lymington an historic town on the edge of the New Forest which has sailing access to Southampton Water.
On Sunday morning the delegates were treated to a very interesting tour of the old town of Poole which was led by Simon Powell.
The weather was quite awful with gale force winds.. in the afternoon we visited Kingston Lacey a National Trust property about 6 miles from Poole.
Monday saw the departure of delegates.
There are now 8 schools all willing to go forward to make a full application for Comenius Action 1 funding for a three year project.
The feeling of all delegates was that we had a super preliminary meeting and that we now have the opportunity to create the opportunity for young people from 8 European countries to communicate with each other about important issues.
This has involved many different approaches within each school and has also included some first attempts at e-mail communication using MSN messenger.
At the end of November 2003 teachers from 5 of the eight schools met in Almere in the Netherlands.
We enjoyed wonderful hospitality which was organised by Zoe and Ingrid. They were totally supported by many of their colleagues from the Meergronden.
We began our visit to the school by being entertained by students performing their own adaptation of Macbeth. The school itself has a bilingual department and half of the children are taught all of their lessons in english. Pupils showed the visitors around the school which was very interesting and informative.
The main conference dealt with issues which affect us all in the running of the project. We have many problems to overcome but the meeting was very useful in addressing some of these.
The entire county of Flevoland lies below sea level and consists of reclaimed land resulting from brilliant engineering and the construction of dykes. The country has a particular beauty of its own.
There was also a strong cultural element to our visit and we enjoyed seeing the reconstructed Dutch East India Trading Company at Lelystad. On our last day we were able to visit Amsterdam.
So after three very busy days we all headed back to our home countries feeling enthusiastic about the future of the project.
During the spring term of 2004 the project really started to progress in a very positive way. The addition of the "Island Forum" has proved to be a first class way for students to exchange ideas but more importantly for us to keep a permanent record of their thoughts and feelings about the topics covered. We owe a real debt of thanks to our Hungarian colleagues for this.
During the first week of March 2004 teachers gathered in Valencia for a further project update. Representatives were present from Spain, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Hungary and the UK. The weather was brilliant and the conference was very successful. The new school was most impressive only being finished in September 2003.
The staff and students at "Isabel de Villena" were wonderful and the organisation by everyone,especially Pilar was first class. Our programme was intensive and included visits to the school and to the city of Valencia.
The main decision of the conference was to abandon the use of "Messenger" in favour of the newly constructed Island Forum link.One of the high points was the amazing meal provided for the delegates by the school. Full of local produce and reflecting the local culture perfectly.
For all of the delegates the conference gave a real insight into the problems and also enthusiasm encountered by all of us.
The second year of the Island Project has seen it really come into its own as a meaningful European Education project in all of the partner institutions.
The Forum has now had over 1000 messages and contributions from students in all participating countries. The chosen topics have been discussed at length and many diverse but valid opinions have been expressed.
The students who have travelled to other schools have been keeping in close touch with each other; indeed some of them are planning visits to each others homes in order to build on friendships forged within the project.
There has also been closer cooperation between pairs of schools, which has added to the intensity of the project and this is seen as very positive.
In November 2004 all partners met in Eskilstuna and for the first time we were able to let students meet. This proved to be a great success and enabled us to see the difficulties involved in such an exchange. It was agreed that we should try to integrate the students from each country as much as possible when these visits occurred.
In April 2005 all of the partners met in Ajka for what proved to be the most successful meeting to date. The range of cultural and educational activities in both Sweden and Hungary was fantastic. Being involved in such meetings has given students and teachers alike a real insight into the importance of such meetings and all partners seem to agree that the project is fulfilling its aims and going beyond these aims in many areas.
In addition to the large meetings Sweden and The Netherlands have had their own exchanges as have Hungary and Spain. Germany and The UK have had video conferences which have been very worthwhile and both countries are improving their technical ability to hold these conferences.
We have all learned that it is a very difficult logistical task for host countries to arrange the logistics of separate programmes for students and teachers but we are getting better at it!
The main method of exchanging opinions is the web based Forum and some countries have found it difficult to ensure students use this facility in a sensible way but again we have all devised our own strategies for dealing with this.
The best thing about the project remains the ability for students and teachers alike to reflect upon shared human experiences within a well- organized framework which has the support of students, teachers, National agencies and The EU.
Since September 2003 each school has been dealing with the issue of "September 11th" with its students.