This document provides information about a school in Poland. It describes the school's location in southern Poland near Krakow. The school has 338 students and is one of the best schools in the region. It has received European funds for projects. The school cooperated with schools in Turkey and Ireland on a past Comenius project. The document discusses forming a project team and preparing for a meeting in Nicosia to work on employability and entrepreneurship skills for students.

1. POLAND
A little about our country and school


2.  Location: a country in Central
Europe
 EU member from May 2004
 Population: about 38 mln,
(2 mln living abroad, mainly in
Great Britain, the USA and
Ireland:
 Ethnically homogeneous
 Major cities: Warsaw, Krakow,
Wroclaw, Gdansk and Poznan
 The Baltic Sea in the north,
the Tatra Mountains in the
south

3.  The constitution we adopted in 1791 as
the first country in Europe (the second
in the world)
 The fight for freedom
 Well-known Poles
 The Pope John Paul II
 Lech Walesa – the Nobel Peace Prize
winner; his activities initiated the proces
of political transformations in Europe
(the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
dissolution of the USSR)
 Maria Sklodowska Curie – a Nobel Prize
winner for Physics and Chemistry (she
discovered two chemical elements)
 Mikolaj Kopernik – the astronomer who
invalidated the Ptolemaic theory; he
claimed that planets revolve around the
Sun, not the other way round 
Here we are!

4. Beautiful beaches at
the Baltic Sea

5. The Masurian Lakes – a wonder of
nature. The region is a perfect
place for those who look for
relaxation or some thrill of
water sports.

6. The Tatra Mountains: a fantastic
place for hiking, climbing,
skiing and other winter sports.

7. Torun
The salt mine in Wieliczka
Warsaw’s Castle Square
Wooden Churches
The Main Square in Sandomierz

8. Warsaw Wroclaw
Gdansk
Katowice
Krakow

10.  Our school is the only school in Slemien District.
 Our village is located in the south of Poland, in the Beskid Mountains:
70 km from the most beautiful and the oldest city in Poland – Krakow, with its magnificent Wawel
Castle and the amazing Main Square
30 km from Wadowice – a town where the Pope John Paul II was born
30 km from Auschwitz Birkenau – a well-known museum and a Hitlerian death camp built during
World War II
100 km from Zakopane – a town located at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, the highest mountains
in Poland; full of picturesque landscapes and mountain lakes.
 Our school is attended by 338 students. It comprises of two types of schools: a primary school and
a junior high school. The school employs 38 teachers and 8 other workers. On average, there are
about 20 students in each group.
 When taking into consideration teaching results, we are one of the best schools in the region.
We have also obtained a lot of European funds (about EUR 250 000 since 2004).
 We cooperate with the local community, local government, organizations and parents in order to
undertake various activities concerning our students’ education and development.
 We have some experience in Comenius programme. We carried out a project with Turkey and
Ireland in years 2008-2010. The Project won the Good Practice Award of our National Agency.

12.  The unemployment rate in Poland is about 13%.
30% of our graduates have difficulty in finding jobs.
(do not write unemployed, write ”a specialist on crisis
management methods surplus of free time”)
 Many people, often young, leave Poland to find jobs.
A lot of workshops and companies in our region have
recently been closed down.
 Our pupils don’t know what kind of occupation
they should choose in order to have greater
employment opportunities.
 There is a decrease in the birth rate. It has a
negative effect on the employment in our
school.

13.  About 7 000 teachers have lost their
jobs in Poland this year so far.
Many teachers take part in additional
training courses to improve their
professional qualifications in order to
fulfil the increasing requirements.
 Our school’s organization and activities
depend mainly on the public funds.
 We strongly believe that realization of
the Project will help our pupils to plan
their future lives more effectively.

14. 1. We have formed the Project Team consisting of pupils, teachers and
parents.
2. We have informed our school and local community about the project
objectives and activities; we have published the basic information on
our school website: www.zsslemien.edu.pl
3. We have printed and displayed the banner informing about the project.
4. We have prepared the Comenius Corner in our school.
5. We have organized the Logo Competition.
6. We have been in touch with the project coordinator and we have
prepared ourselves for the project meeting in Nicosia.
7. We have conducted the lessons concerning the terms of employability
and entrepreneurship.
8. We have prepared a virtual tour of our school.

16. Logo competition

17. Preliminary evaluation
We encouraged our pupils to reflect on their initial
perceptions of Europe as a community.
We checked our pupils’ understanding of the term
‘European Unity’.
We scrutinized our pupils’ concepts of employability
and entrepreneurship during lessons conducted in
every class.
We asked our pupils to evaluate the potential benefits
awarded by this project.