Základní škola, Praha 9 – Horní Počernice, Ratibořická 1700
Contact person:
Eva Holá
eva.hola@zs-hp.cz
Our school is located on the east side of Prague. We have 582 pupils in 22 classes. Of these, 350 of the students are between six and eleven years old. All of our educational content and activities taking place at our school are aimed at forming and developing core competencies. Recently, we have had an increasing number of pupils with special educational needs.
We try to motivate our students to study. We would like for our children to enjoy studying. Therefore, in our classes we do not simply teach from in front of the class. We also work with our students in groups on short projects. Not only do we want our children to find the solution to the problem, but we want to try to help them understand the how and why of the answer. They will remember the solution better if they find it out for themselves. Additionally, our children participate in many individual and group competitions.
The newest way to make education more attractive to children is by teaching using new technology. Since 1992, we have been using computers and the internet in our lessons. In 2005, our school bought our first interactive whiteboard and we have bought 19 more SMART Boards for various subjects since then. Of our 38 teachers, 27 of them actively use the SMART Board and the rest use it occasionally. Our children like learning in this way because it is like a game to them. They can do projects for these SMART Boards at home, too. This is a good way to use computers in education.
We started to use SMART Response voting equipment, which is very easy to use. In a few classes we have also used netbooks with SMART Sync. Our students love it. Our students also create some jobs at home with their SMART Notebook SE. In January 2009, we became the SMART Centre for the first time.
One of our current projects is called “Elixír do škol” For this project; we have live experimental demonstrations in physics. Children can plan and do their own physics experiments, too. While most of this is for our secondary school students, we also have a simplified version for young students.
We recently qualified for the “Ekoškola” program, which encourages schools to teach their children about environmental awareness. Under this program, we have to put up many signs to encourage energy conservation, started s recycling program and held special classes to teach children about protecting the environment. We also hold special workshops to show children how to recycle and repurpose waste into art.
Another of our current projects is aimed at increasing our students´ reading comprehension. At present, this is a growing problem in our country. Students understand the words they read, but they do not comprehend the meaning. One method is to use the students´ own books and then to ask them leading questions to check their comprehension. The management of our school supports all of the educational activities of our teachers.