Laura Lanza Baronessa di Carini Comprehensive School Website

Contenuto

Teaching method

The formative offer

The articulation of the year

The school year is divided into three quarters, each of them being relevant to a specific stage of the educational – didactic path.

The first quarter focuses essentially on monitoring the skills already acquired and on the start of the new teaching – learning path.

The second quarter focuses on developing and possibly re-structuring of the path.

The third quarter plans the carrying out of the several activities meant to improve the curriculum with a “different” formation offer; it is also a stage allowing pupils to turn “knowledge” and “being able to do” skills into “behaviour”.

The first school period lasts from 17th until 30th September and is employed for the following activities:

• setting up the first classes based on objective data (test and evaluation schemes). This activity is not carried out by a commission but by all teachers being divided into different classes so that to stimulate a common reflection by anyone who is involved in it;
• socialization and group activities to encourage positive relations among peers and between teachers and pupils;
• training to safety (school space exploration, detection of the escape routes, analysis of signals, drills and simulations);
• embellishment of the classroom (within a competition awarding with a price at the end of the school year to the most original and the most well-kept classroom);
• meetings between the families and both the head teacher and the teachers to share the program of the formative offer.

The school year, meant as start of the activities mainly didactic, will begin on 2nd October for the Lower Secondary school and on 3rd October for the Primary school.

Classes structure

Primary school

As per the Teachers Body’s decision, the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd classes of the Primary school will be run by prevailing teachers who will be present in one single class for about 19 hours as main reference for the pupils, particularly during the starting school period.

The 4th and the 5th classes will have a modular structure, namely based on three teachers for two classes or four teachers for three classes plus Religion and English teachers in case a teacher of specialized module is not available. The aim of such a structure is to prepare pupils to the multiplicity of teachers stated by the Lower Secondary school.

Nevertheless, the classes structure may be different from the above models depending on a particular need of the class.

Lower Secondary school

To set up an adequate guidance in the growth process and to manage some problematic aspects of the school life, the following guided sections have been established:

• SOCRATE PITAGORA section, with Classical-Scientific-Pedagogical line;
• MUNARI section, with Arts line;
• GRAND TOUR section, with Foreign Languages and Tourism line;
• CARDANO section, with Technical line;
• FLORIO section, with Professional line.

During the first two years period the curriculum of the guided sections will be the same while it will be different for the third year at 20% extent. On the other hand, the subjects, the optional activities, the didactics excursions and the education journeys will be congruent with the specific section.

The organization of the school system: the three “D”s

Each school year is characterized by a pedagogical principal being the basis of the specific formative offer.

In this view, the pupils of the 1st year (both of Primary and Lower Secondary school) are involved in didactic-formative activities focusing on the sense of AMUSEMENT.

This means that it is necessary for the pupils to find a joyful and friendly atmosphere. Moreover, they need to be involved in activities aiming to socialization, to positive relations among peers and with adult people, to adaptability and to change.

The “formative contract” stated with the pupils and their families will enable both parties to share the “educational-didactic project” and to adapt it to the class needs.

The combination RIGHT/DUTY  slightly represents the first two years period of the Primary school and more definitely of the Lower Secondary school.

Pupils are invited to a more specific consideration about their role (within the group and within society) which must become active, stimulating and constructive.

Didactic-formative activities focus on the offer of the inseparable link between right and duty being considered not as just faces of the same medal but more properly as peculiar relation according to which each right derives from a correlative duty.

Finally, the second two years period of the Primary school and the third class of the Lower Secondary school are based on the methodological activity of DOCUMENTATION.

Therefore, each didactic-formative activity aims to give skills of selecting, synthesizing, collecting and registering the experiences in the light of spreading the learning strategies.

At this stage, the pupil tends to his/her own operational independence and so he/she becomes the author of his/her formative path.

The teacher watches the class situation very closely and also supervises, encourages and supports the initiatives of the single pupil or of the whole group.

The scientific research group for the methodological innovation

The core of the Institute is the Research Group, oriented to give strong basis to innovation.

The Group revises the educational path including the three different school grades and aims to meet the requests of an ever-changing society.

The task of the Research Group is to suggest alternative teaching methods and/or meeting the specific needs of particular situations.

It proposes techniques, structures, relation methods and anything else that can be useful.

It also monitors and tests the general level of learning and growth of the pupils with relation to the curriculum of the previous school year. This to eliminate breaks and repetitions in the didactic path from the Nursery school to the Lower Secondary school.

Moreover, the Group is responsible for the centralized tests necessary to evaluate, at the end of each quarter, the learning level of the pupils with reference to the standard levels established by the Ministry of Education following to international surveys.

Finally, The Research Group members supervise the setting up of operational models for teachers’ planning and of evaluation documents sticking to the curriculum, the laws in force and to the general organization of the Institute.

(Translation edited by Professor Maria Grazia Billa)

Latest updates: 04/09/2010