Dr Susanne Pratscher is a member of both myEUROPE and Spring Day advisory boards. She explains us the reasons of publishing a new yearbook at her school in Vienna, Austria. In addition to usual content referring to the day-to-day school life, the book includes some pages about international collaboration on the Web and face-to-face.
Our yearbook was published again in June 2004. Our administrator for 25 years, Prof. Bauer, retired and her successor, Prof. Fölhs, took over elegantly. She introduced some changes, but she did that in such a soft way, that the transition was a very smooth one.
It has already become a tradition now that students of the freshman classes tell us about their first impressions, and seniors look back on the five years they have spent at our school. This year the first seniors of our notebook classes graduated from our school. As we also have students who attend the commercial school for three years, we do not have to say good bye to all of them. Some are staying at our school as students of the "Aufbaulehrgang" which will enable them to pass a Matura (leaving exam) after three more years.
Our yearbook looks back again on a number of language excursions to English, French and Italian speaking countries. Students enjoyed not only seeing a number of interesting places in England, Malta, the USA, France and Italy, they also had a great time with host families while improving their language skills.
But also while staying at school students had numerous opportunities to speak and write the foreign languages they study: they participated in international projects. They visited a partner class in Slovenia in the course of a Twinning Project, they enjoyed the visit of their Slovenian friends; they cooperated with companies which set up shop in neighbouring Hungary within the last ten years; they found out about the different leisure time activities of Austrian and Hungarian students.
As you can see from the title picture of the yearbook, the international flair is typical for our school. As Vienna is also a UN headquarter it goes without saying, that students from all over the world attend the school. It is a special goal for us to make them feel at home here. One of the great projects which enabled students to learn more about various cultures all over Europe was Spring Day 2004. Students communicated via e-mail in order to collect information about peace bells worldwide, they answered questions from classes in France and Sweden, and they even won a prize in the Austrian competition.
I would like to mention the many activities of our training firms. It goes without saying that they are constantly communicating with training firms in Austria and abroad. They also present their work at the Austrian Training Firm Fair and at the International Training Firm Fair which took place in Romania this year. Especially the training office at our school is a place which fascinates visitors from abroad, who tell us that their schools do not have a similar place for practical training.
As you can see from the title picture of the yearbook, the international flair is typical for our school. As Vienna is also a UN headquarter it goes without saying, that students from all over the world attend the school. It is a special goal for us to make them feel at home here. One of the great projects which enabled students to learn more about various cultures all over Europe was Spring Day 2004. Students communicated via e-mail in order to collect information about peace bells worldwide, they answered questions from classes in France and Sweden, and they even won a prize in the Austrian competition.
