Riga

Secondary

school Nr. 13

Riga Secondary School Nr. 13 is situated in the very

centre of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Our school was

built in 1951. Our students receive compulsory

education and graduating from the Form 9 - they

receive a certification for an education. If they want to

continue their studies and then receive a document of a

secondary education, they can continue education in

our socalled "gymnasium" classes (Form 10 - Form 12).

Our school is one of the leading schools in Riga. Our

staff is able to guarantee a good level of education and

usually our graduates enter Latvia and other State High

Educational Establishments.Our students are among

winners of different subject competitions organized in our district and our country.

Our students can gat not only a good education in our school but to develop their

creative abilities in music, art, dancing and sports. There is a great variety of out

of class activities in our school. The language of teaching not only in Russian but

in Latvian, too. Some subjects are taught in state language - in Latvian. Our

students have possibilities to study several foreign languages such as English,

German and French. Our teachers have good education and continue their

education professional competence in different courses and seminars. We have 13

masters of art among our teachers, worked out their Our school is involved in

various international projects. Our school can be proud of its traditions. Every

spring students of our school take part in a very interesting concert dedicated to

Mother's Day. Every December choose the best girl in every form. This action is

dedicated to the day of St. Lucia. After the beautiful ceremonial nomination the

girls and group of students with presents visit the pansion for orphans or the old

persons worked for many years as teachers. Teachers and students organize

special weeks of languages, history, mathematics and natural sciences. Students

demonstrate their success.

Riga Secondary School №13 – Latvia

In Latvia we have a subject called Social Knowledge in the 1st till 9th grade

(age 7-16). Here the students are taught about the rights and duties of a

person in the society; to develop in a person the skills to act according

principles of morality; to be tolerant and be able to understand the variety

of communities. During the process of acquiring the main topics of this

subject – the attention of students is focused on understanding of social and

political processes in Latvia, Europe and the World. One of the goals is to

show the students the variety of activities in social and political life. At the

same time one of the aspects is to inform the students about laws, political

organization and rules of the Latvian Society.

Ethics – that is the subject for students of 1st grade (age 7). It is only 1

lesson per week. The teacher discusses with the students the main rules of

moral (what is good and what is bad). As Latvia is the country where you

can find representatives of 3 different churches – Protestant, Catholic, Greek

orthodox and at the same time a lot of families are atheists, so at school we

do not have lessons in Religion. But during the course of education the

teachers of History, Literature, Social Knowledge, Visual art, Natural

Sciences discuss the ideas expressed by the church.

The lessons of IT are an obligatory part of the school curriculum from 5th

grade till 7th grade (age 11-13) and from 9th till 12th grades. The main goals

of IT:

- to teach students to be an equal member of the modern society of

information technology;

- to be able to acquire the main principles and skills of usage;

- to teach students to use IT in receiving experience in intellectual work.

Foreign languages – English is taught from the 3rd grade. German/or

French – is taught from 10th grade (this year we start to teach French from

4th grade (optionally).

School parliament - every class has a representative in the Parliament

from 5th grade. The members of the Parliament elect the President of the

Parliament. There is also a representative of a teacher’s staff. Their task is

to organize: out of class activities, school meeting and parties. Being a

member of School Parliament every student has a possibility to master

his/her social and citizenship skills.

Citizenship – Globally

What is citizenship? Citizenship is a moral position, as expressed in the sense of

duty and responsibility of the person before the civil community to which he

belongs: the state, family, church, professional or other community, a willingness

to uphold and defend against any infringement of its rights and interests.

First of all, citizenship means the awareness of their involvement in the homeland,

its people, its origins and roots. It is one of the essential moral values of a

gentleman who loves his homeland. Local citizenship is the first step towards the

notion of “Citizenship Globally”. The feeling of freedom gives a person ability to

feel himself as a citizen of the world. And at the same time it gives the feeling of

respect – to the laws and public institutions. Another very important moment is

that “Citizenship Globally” gives strength for the manifestation of human dignity in

all situations and gives confidence in choosing the right targets and legal methods

to achieve them.

How to develop “Citizenship Globally” at school, what recommendations

should be suggested?

Manifestations of citizenship in everyday life – at the lessons Constitution (the

constitution of each country recorded the basic rights and freedoms guaranteed to

citizens), Legislation, Literature, Family Education (citizenship begins with the love

of the family), Society (lack of national, racial, religious discrimination in the

society), Education (knowledge of the law, history, culture), Work on Yourself

(careful attention to itself, the conscious cultivation of respect for the law, the

legal and moral norms accepted in a society; interpersonal relationships.

These are main points to be included for the discussion with students. For

Different age groups could be organized various activities.

Latvia – Ministry of Education together with Microsoft Latvia and European

Volunteers Year (EBDY) organized a discussion “Active citizenship and e-

skills” (1 March 2011). The aim of this discussion - to give citizens

possibilities to be involved in the process of accepting political decisions, to

attract attention to the volunteers’ work. The group of students of our school

attended this event and being inspired with the ideas the organized a project

at school – “Join the volunteers’ movement”.

Project weeks dedicated to the problems of citizenship.

Power Point Presentation about actual events in the political and social life of

different countries in EU.

Travelling exhibitions – collection of visual materials informing about life,

culture, traditions of countries in EU.

The use of IT for exchanging of views and information about current events

in different countries (Facebook, Twitter).

“Round tables”, discussions, meetings, students’ conferences on the urgent

topics with the invitation of active politicians, scientists, journalists.

International Cooking Day – a day when kids can prepare some traditional

food from different parts of the world. At the same time while selling the

products they may collect money for those in need and give the money

received to the charity.

If it is possible for the school it may organize Foreign Cinema Week. So

students for a week or more may watch the movies that are characteristic

for a particular country and discuss them. At the same time they may

prepare questions to be asked connected with the history or social studies.

Students may try to find more information about foreign kids for whom

studying may be a very difficult task and help him/her by collecting money

for school equipment and fees.

RECYCLING

They may prepare an exhibition of their art work and sell the pieces of art

to gather funds for buying trees to be planted by the school.

Prepare a leaflet about vandalism.

Prevention of bullying among students

Rules and laws -

All activities aimed on prevention of bullying among students are based on definite

legal acts and rules. One of the main official documents at school are – Rules and

Regulations of Order at school and Children`s Rights Protection Law.

Every teacher is informed about these documents and use it in his/her everyday

work with children. It is the task of a teacher to acquaint parents with these

documents at class meetings.

The message of these documents is – the student should act according to

accepted in a society norms of moral and ethics. The student should be

responsible for his/her behaviour at school; it is not allowed to act in a such way

that it could affect somebody`s honour and dignity. It is forbidden to influence

somebody psychologically, to humiliate other students.

Once a week (there is a definite day according to the time-table) there is a class-

lesson in every form. The class teacher discusses different topics with the students

and at the beginning of the school-year several class-lessons are dedicated to this

problem – “Your duties and rights as a student”, “How to solve the conflict

situation”, “You are not alone”. The topics of these discussions depend on the

psychological situation in the class, the age of the students, their problems etc.

The supporting service –

In order to support teachers and administration in their preventive work with the

students and their parents we have such specialists at school as: a psychologist, a

social teacher and a speech therapist.

A psychologist has definite time for individual consultations for students, their

parents and teachers. The class teacher could invite the psychologist to meet with

the class and to have a lecture/a talk/a discussion on the urgent topic.

Psychologist could give professional recommendations to the administration and

other interested persons in complicated cases. A social teacher – her role is very

important, she is a person who solves the conflicts (student student; student

parent; student/-s teacher); she is specially trained, she is confident and

she has definite rights and duties. Social teacher has rights to communicate with

the Police.

The School Parliament –

There is a group of students in the School Parliament – 3 students form 9 – they

are those persons who try to solve the problems of students on their own level.

The main features for them to be confident and really interested in helping,

positive.

According to our positive experience of solving the problems of bullying or

prevention of bullying we can present the following scheme:

Level of Actions Solution

Acquaintance with the situation;

talks with class teacher, a

victim, and offender.

The conflict is positively settled. The offender

feels sorry

for his deeds and apologizes.

Talks with members of school

Parliament – victim and the

offender.

The conflict is positively settled. The students

solve the

conflict by themselves.

Talks, individual meetings with a

psychologist,

parents

The conflict is positively settled. Parents

together with

the psychologist listened to both sides and

found the right

solution.

The process of investigation,

information

evaluation – a social teacher, a

class teacher, parents,

victim and offender.

The detailed evaluation and analysis. Parents

and

administration are informed (in written form).

In some cases

the offender could be punished – an official

reprimand. In a very serious situation – the

Police is informed.

If we have cases of bullying at school mainly they are solved on the level of class

teacher or School Parliament, but sometimes a social teacher is the main person in

solving the problem.

If we want to have a positive, friendly and devoting atmosphere among students

of different age, social status and nationalities, we have to work constantly in

explaining the sense of rules of living in a modern multinational and multicultural

civilized society.

Social skills in the classroom

The school subject “Social Knowledge” is included in school curriculum for 1-9

classes since 2005. The students are provided with workbooks for every class. The

teachers acquired additional professional education in order to be teachers of this

subject. The students of 1-9 classes have one lesson per week.

The motivation and aim of introducing this subject

in the school programme – as we live in the

modern society which has the tendency to change

very quickly and these changes influence the

person’s life in the personal and professional

aspects. These changes could be positive or

dramatic; they depend on the political and

economical situation in the country, in the world.

One of the most important problem for the young

generation is – to be informed about the new

social relations and tendencies in the society

(especially in the past-soviet society), to find the

proper place in the labour market, to be able to offer own knowledge and skills, to

integrate in modern political and economical interrelations. At the same time the

new generation should not lost the ethical and moral traditions and values. The

civil society is formed of socially responsible and at the same time critically

thinking personalities.

For realization of the conception of “Social Science” as a school subject it is

necessary:

The professional competence of a teacher

His/her readiness to master the variety of study methods applied during the

lessons or out of class activities.

The teachers of our school are sure that it is very important to give students

possibilities to express their point of view, to use their experience, to demonstrate

their skills in analysing, making conclusions and to formulate their own position.

The teachers’ task is to create positive, friendly atmosphere during the lesson, be

tolerant, to accept various values (student’s social background, religious

belonging, race), to stimulate students to express their own vision of the world.

These are main principles when planning and organizing activities during the

lesson and after it. The teachers applied various interactive methods of teaching

during the lessons such as:

Role-plays

Brain-storms

Discussions

Projects

Essays

Interviews

Excursions

PP presentations

Participation in

events organized by school Parliament, City organizations

Student’s portfolio

Student’s diary

Self-evaluation

Student’s Portfolio – is a very popular activity among young students; they include

drawings, photos, lists of literature, important notes etc.

PP presentations, Projects, Self-evaluation, discussions – these forms are very

popular with students of forms 7-9.

Offered topics for the discussions:

1-3 classes - My school, my classmates.

We and Latvia.

Me and my time.

What I wish and what I could.

How to understand myself and others.

4-5 classes - The rainbow is beautiful.

My family.

How to understand other persons and live together.

How to live long.

6-7 classes - I am a part of the world.

My rights and duties.

We are the same and different.

The place where we live and work.

8-9 classes - My inner world.

I in the world of values.

I am not alone.

The rules and laws of the labour market.

I and my responsibility.

My country in the world.

School Parliament

School parliament represents one of the main component of the school body as a

whole. If we look back in the history of the development schooling in our country

we can state thet such an organization of students always existed starting from

the beginning of the 20th century.

But what about nowadays and our school.

Every year (in September) every class started from 7th are discussing the possible

activities that could be realized during the school year and possible candidates

who could be the leaders, organizators and ‘souls’ of of these activities.

Traditionally every class offers 1-2 candidates for the School Parliament. These

persons usually form the School Parliament.

We teachers are also occupied with the idea – who could be the adviser, mentor of

School Parliament. It seems natural such union of a techer and a group of

students – the teacher could formulate the most urgent and necessary activities

from the point of view of teacher’s staff and students – to formulate and propose

their ideas and views on the processes that take place at school.

One of the main moment is to find a compromise and create a strategy of

realization of planned actions.

The advantages of this union:

The developing of feeling of responsibility in students

The readiness to share solution of problems

To be active, industrious, creative for the welfare of the school

To develop features of a real citizen – to live the life of the community

The main activities of School Parliament:

Organizing of school parties, concerts (programms, participants, musical

equipment, promoting, advertising)

Sports events’ organization

To support school traditions – Christmas party, Russian Ball, St.Valentine’s

day, Mother’s day, The Last Bell (for students of forms 9 and 12)

Charity activities – concerts and food presents for teachers’ pensioners, for

children from Speacial Needs Schools, for the old persons’ pansion.

Consultations for students of our school who have various problems (in

studies, in relations with classmates etc.)

Working out recommendations for improving work of the school canteen (

variety of healthy food)

Planning of repairing work in classrooms during summer holidays and

decoration of the playground and school yard.

The work in School Parliaments is a voluntary work, it takes personal time of a

student, his/her energy; so during the school year it could be changes in the staff.

At the end of the school year the work of the School Parliament is analyzed and

evaluated by the students and the teachers. And new goals for the next year are

worked out and discussed by the students.

In August we have the traditional meeting of the teachers and administration of

the School. The idea of this meeting – analysis of school achievements and

problems, usually the

activities School Parliaments

are discussed and the role of

the teacher-mentor is

evaluated. Recommendations

for the next school year are

worked out by the staff and

fixed in the school plan.

Encouraging the creativity among students and

Implementation creativity in lessons in our school

Development of creative abilities of students in our school is carried out in the

classroom as well as after school. Depending on the desires and abilities of

students they have a choice of classes: music, chess, drama club, math club,

visual arts, home economics, dance, etc.

We live in the modern society, which has the tendency to change quickly and

these changes influence the learning method at school.

A few years ago teachers often used the passive method of teaching.

This method of interaction between students and teachers provides the teacher is

the principal manager of the lesson, but the students play the role of passive

subject to the directives of the teacher. This method does not allow students to

demonstrate their abilities.

Now the democratic society requires people who can think creatively, be brave

enough to solve the problems by themselves. The teachers of our school are sure

that it is very important to give students possibilities to express their point of

view, to use their experience, to demonstrate their skills in analyzing, making

conclusions, to express their thoughts competently. So the teachers of our school

use the interactive method of presenting new material.

Interactive method is a form of interaction between students and teachers, in

which teacher and students interact with each other during the lesson and the

students are not passive listeners but active participants of the lesson. In an

interactive lesson a teacher and students work on equal terms, this lesson

involves democratic style of communication. The students talk to each other in the

lesson, argue with each other and as a result come to the right decision on their

own. The teacher only directs the activities of students the goal of the lesson. For

realization of this conception it is necessary:

Rather high level of professional competence of a teacher;

His/her readiness to master the variety of study methods applied during the

lesson activities.

The teachers, task is to create friendly atmosphere during the lesson, to be

tolerant to the opinions of students, to stimulate students to express their

opinions. There are main principles when planning and organizing activities

during the interactive lesson. The teachers of our school applied various

interactive methods of teaching during the lesson such as:

Creative tasks and experiments;

Discussions;

Educational games;

Competition;

Projects;

Role-plays;

PP presentations;

Brain- storms;

Lab works

Collecting information through the Internet and classification of it.

The interactive lesson consists of several important stages.

The Interactive Lesson’s Structure using our teachers in their work

Lesson’s stages Stage’s time

Motivation No more than 5% of the lesson’s

time

Formulation of learning outcomes About 5% of the lesson’s time

Obtain the necessary information About 10% of the lesson’s time

Execution of interactive tasks the

main stage of the lesson

About 60% of the lesson’s time

Introspection of knowledge

received by students (Self-

evaluation)

About 20% of the lesson’s time

One of the most important stages

is introspection of knowledge

received by students. At this stage

the students examine their new

knowledge, how they managed to

use their previous experience,

their point of view, to demonstrate

their skills in analyzing and making

conclusions.

Preparing the creative tasks takes

the bigest part of time in preparation for the lesson. However, the teachers of our

school successfully cope with this problem. For example:

In maths lessons when the students study symmetry they are asked to

recall the symmetrical objects by nature. Students draw butterflys,

dragonflys, leaves of chestnut,

lilac flowers. When the students study solid geometry, they make different

paper cubes, pyramids, cones, boxes, and then collect the figures of little

people.

In physics lessons the students make a lot of experiments. During the

experiments students learn to work on their own: making up a problem,

putting forward the hypothesis, inventing the course of the experiment,

making conclusions and then presenting the results. When students study

topic “Simple Mechanisms they are asked to make plasticines blocks and

build a pyramid as ancient Egyptians did.

The inclusion of students in communicative creative activities helps them to

become active, independent and diversified and make them competitive in the

labour market in future.

In conclusion we can say that it is impossible to imagine modern school and

modern system of organizing study process without these main elements of

implementation creativity at the lesson. At the same time we understood it needs

special preparation from the teacher – “a new glimpse on the structure of the

lesson”.

EXTENDED COMMUNITY

Our school is situated in the very centre of Riga. This autumn we celebrated

the 60th anniversary of the school. During all these years the school demonstrated

the high level of education, we are

well known in our city. Every school

year we have new students not only

for Forms 1 but for other forms too.

This school year we have 559

students from the age of 7 till 19.

The teachers team tries to make the

life of the students interesting and

various not only at the lessons but

after them too. We have created

programmes aimed to develop students’ interests, skills and talents in After

Lessons Clubs.

If a student wants to widen his/her

knowledge in study subjects he/she

can do it in Science Club (Math,

Chemistry, Physics), Languages Club

(English, French, German). Such Clubs

as : Choir "Melody", Vocal group

"Voice", Modern dances, School

theatre, Drawing and Painting,

Traditional Handicrafts, School

Museum, Outdoor Sport Games, Chess

are very popular among our students of

different age. The goal of these clubs is

not only to develop students’ skills,

interests but to develop the student as

a personality, to help him to find his

future profession. The Clubs give a unique opportunity for students to present

themselves in different competitions, exhibitions, shows organised not only at

school but in the city and that is a great experience. Our students members of

Theatre Club organise performances not only classmates but also in the nursing

home for elderly persons in our district. Our singers organised concerts for

parents, small kids who attend pre-school classes. Young painters decorate school

for Harvest Holiday, Christmas and Easter.

To extend community - it means to open the doors of school and meet with

interesting persons who can talk about their life experience, their work and their

successes. Every Tuesday after the lessons our students have such an opportunity

to meet politicians from Riga Dome, officers from Ministries, businessmen, officers

from Embassies, our former students (doctors, engineers, scientists, painters,

journalists). These meetings are very popular, the students collect information

before the meeting and then they are eager to ask questions. The activities of

After Lessons Clubs, Meetings on Tuesday these are means to widen students’

horizons, to build a bridge between school and community.

Intercultural Competences

Our school actively introduces in

study subjects programmes

elements of the intercultural

competences which correspond with

the essence and goals of the definite

school subject, our teachers try to

integrate subject materials which

depict the problems of cultural

diversity.

The steps of acquiring

intercultural competences are from recognizing the other culture and upbringing

tolerance till analysis of own system of values and looking for new forms of

behaviour.

We understand that success in this sphere of education depends on teachers`

readiness to work with it. The main tasks in developing Intercultural skills are:

to understand and respect different cultural, language, ethnical groups:

to form positive attitude to cultural diversity on the level of a person, a

group and the society;

to work with stereotypes and

negative attitude to others;

to develop mutual understanding

among representatives of

different cultural and language

groups;

to help to understand negative

influence of racism and other

barriers that create

misunderstanding in the society.

In order to master Intercultural competences our teachers worked out the

glossary of multiculturalism (the explanation of such terms as refugees,

discrimination, integration, minority, etc.)

The teachers use in their practical work in the class such interactive methods as

roleplays such as:

BAFA-BAFA - to assist students in understanding various cultures. This play

is unique because it gives the students possibilities to gain experience in

living in other cultures;

BABILON – to model the situation of intercultural communication, to analysis

the situation of verbal and non-verbal communication;

THE TREE OF LIFE – to form the understanding the problems of refugees

and aliens, to develop the interest to other cultures and form the positive

attitude to the problems of refugees;

MAY I COME IN – to support solidarity with persons who are pressed to

leave their countries, to understand arguments for and against.

The list of roleplays is rather impressive and very popular among students.

The teachers together with students collect materials using the Internet, mass-

media and interviews. When presenting the collecting materials students widely

use Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and master their skills in presentation and

discussion.