LONGBREAK

Kärdla Ühisgümnaasium is situated on a small island Hiiumaa with about 10 000 inhabitants. Hiiumaa is an island in the Baltic Sea, which has a diverse, beautiful and clean nature.

Our students mostly come from the town Kärdla but a significant number of students in the gymnasium come from different parts of the island and they stay at the school hostel during the week.

The aim of our school is to educate active, well-organized European citizens who value the national and the European heritage. Besides academic progress Kärdla Ühisgümnaasium has focused on international projects, students´ exchange, sports, music, art and folkdance to offer more activities for young people. In our school there are equal opportunities for everybody.

In Kärdla Ühisgümnaasium there is a youth organisation Young Europeans of Kärdla which was founded in 2000 to organise students who were interested in project work and our school PR on different levels. Our aim is to record and preserve our national heritage, protect and promote the life and culture of the small islands and offer opportunities for young people to make new contacts and share their ideas with the other European youth. Every year the 10th formers join our organisation as school leavers graduate from our school. As this organisation appeared to be very popular, now there are students between the ages 7-19. We wrote projects and organized international language camps on our island with Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland (2001-2004). Our students have learned about national heritage, environment, culture of different countries and worked in collaboration with our local museum. In 2005 we had a project with French students. It was a wonderful opportunity to live in host families, experience everyday life of French people, visit schools and get to know their educational system, learn about their culture and see the beauty of the country. Our students introduced our school, our island and Estonian educational system. From 2004 to 2007 we were involved in Comenius 1 project The Sea Separates the Sea Unites (Lithuania, Finland, Turkey). In 2006 and 2007 we participated in the projects in Cyprus and Latvia. In 2008 we participated in the Youth Exchange project “Our Pearls of Creativity” with young people from Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Turkey. Comenius project www.globalsolutions.eu (2008-2010) involves 10 countries. Youth Exchanges foster the mobility of young people in Europe. They encourage initiative and creativity in young people, facilitate their active participation in the project, and thereby provide an intercultural learning experience. Youth exchanges and projects help young people to gain new skills, knowledge, and attitudes as well as to learn to using them in a variety of contexts. They help to improve communication in a foreign language, communication skills and self-confidence.

Our last projects have been Comenius projects as well mainly in the field of culture.

Pieces of European Treasure Recited by Youth or P.O.E.T.R.Y with 10 countries was a very successful project and "The Foundation for the Management of European (EU) Lifelong Learning Programmes (LLP) awarded the Honorary Distinction to Laniteio Lykeio for the outstanding quality of the project in the framework of the Programme Comenius - School Partnerships" as Cyprus was the coordinator.

Our current projects are Literature Live and My National Costume and the work will end in 2015.

We decided to apply for the project about entrepreneurship for 2 reasons: firstly our new curriculum advises to teach that subject as an optional lesson. In our school students have chosen it but so far the lessons have been more theoretical. We thought that participating in the project will give students more practical knowledge and involve them in real life.

All in all we are just learning and not so experienced in that field.

Secondly there is the urge from parents and the community to give students at least basic knowledge of economy and business.