Vesna Visit

The pupil council had a visit from Vesna Oslak who has come all the way from Slovenia.
The purpose of her visit was to find out about the way the education system works in Glaitness School.
We gave her some questions to answer about her home country. One of the questions we asked about was the temperature in Slovenia and she told us it is approximately 25'C in the Summer and approximately -10'C in the Winter, which is very different from up north in Orkney.
She also told us a little bit about the landscape and  60% of Slovenia is trees and the other 40% would be land.
Vesna also told us about the food that they eat there. They eat about the same portions of meat as in Scotland.
Their school system in Slovenia is VERY different from ours, they do not wear school uniform and they work in individual desks.
In Slovenia they do not fundraise for many charities like Childeren in Need and Red Nose Day .
We look forward to hearing more about Slovenia when she comes to work in our classrooms.
Check the map to see where Slovenia is.

View Slovenia in a larger map

Pupil Council - or when a school is really about their learners

Hi. My name is Vesna and I am a Comenius Assistant from Slovenia, currently working around Orkney schools (You will soon be able to find out more about me and the reasons I am here at the page of International Education).
Besides visiting different classes and getting a good overview of how teaching-learning relationship works around here, I also got the chance to attend meetings of Pupil Council. Even though, I do not believe we have such a thing as Pupil Council around schools in Slovenia, I really liked the idea of it. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that the learners are able to cooperate in establishing a school to be positive learning environment to work in. Bringing up their own ideas and with the help of the school staff managing to put them into practice enables them to feel that the school is about them and theirs.
During the last PC meeting I was also asked some questions by the learners who are a part of PC. They were mainly interested into why I decided to come to Orkney, how I like it and whether Slovenia is a very different country from the place they live in. It was my pleasure to answer all of their questions, as well as point out some major differences between the two places. Speaking about Slovenia and showing them brochures with all the pictures and everything made me think about my country and that I still FEEL sLOVEnija, despite the fact that I like Orkney.