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.