Monday, Feb 4th: On Monday, our first day in Denmark, all students went to school at 8:00 and visited the normal classes till 9:30. Our subjects were English and German and despite of the language barrier we tried to understand as much as possible. After a short break of 15 minutes, all members of the Erasmus+ project met in the assembly room, where we were welcomed with a speech by the headmaster and a short Danish song by the primary school choir. Our Danish exchange partners started with their first presentation about “Fun Facts” in Denmark, so we got to know Denmark a bit better. The following sports activities in the gym helped to get in contact with new people and everyone had fun. From 11:15 till 12:00 we had time to have lunch in school and the Danish students showed us their school. We were very surprised that there were children from kindergarten to the 9th grade in one building and we really liked the colorful and creative classrooms. After that, the presentations “What is our school doing to welcome and support the acceptance of diversity in everyday school life?” started. Every country had prepared a power point or a video, so we had very different presentations. With regards to content, every school has their own way of welcoming diversity with different projects or personal support. One project from the Netherlands, the “Purple Friday”, an organization against discrimination of minorities, got a lot of positive feedback. Later, we again went to the regular classes with our hosts. After a Math and German class, we left school at 4:00 pm. Our afternoons in our host families were very relaxed. Some of us met each other or accompanied their exchange student to their hobbies. Paula
Tuesday, Feb 5th: On Tuesday, we met at school at 8:15. Today, we went to Copenhagen to learn something about the capital of Denmark and its history. At first, we had a guided tour around Copenhagen, which had been prepared by two of the Danish students. We took our bus to get to the different attractions and then left the bus several times to have a closer look at them. We saw the Assistens Cemetery with the grave of Hans Christian Andersen, the Israels Plads, a large public square with a memorial of Israel, the King’s garden and Rosenborg Castel, the Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen, Amalienborg and some special churches like the Frederik´s Church, a synagogue and the round tower in the town center, where we had a wonderful view over Copenhagen. After this 3 hour trip we had free time in the center to go shopping or to discover the city on our own. At 4:00 pm we met to take the bus back to Ballerup, but Leonie, Paula and their hosts didn´t because they had the permission to stay and spent the whole day there till 19:00. All in all, the day was very interesting because of the tour around the city and very exciting because of the dimension of Copenhagen. Paula
Wednesday, Feb 6th: Our day started at school at 8 o’clock. At first we built six mixed groups to talk about the reflections we prepared on Padlet about “How to welcome, accept and benefit diversity in everyday school-live“. Each group created a guideline about it. After that we had a short break and at 9:45 two women talked about their work as “Town mothers“ – a group of women who try to integrate isolated women in their region. The next presentation was about the Danish welcoming classes and then we had a lunch break. In the second half of the day we presented the “Selfie with my hero” posters. We also discussed the question “what makes a hero a hero“ in mixed groups. At 2:30 we left school with our hosts. At home we watched a movie, ate a typical Danish dinner. Paula and Leonie went to the shopping center in Ballerup. Jasmin
Thursday, Feb 7th: On Thursday we first went to school with our host. Jasmin and I went to a P.E. lesson first. It is really different to our P.E. lessons. They were able to decide between a gym or a sport circle with the teacher. It was really cool that you can decide what you want to do. After that we drove to the Viking Ship Museum by bus. There we walked around or watched a movie. We saw a lot, like how they were built, what they were used for and you could see some pieces from old ships but mostly only the wood. In the afternoon we drove to the Roskilde Cathedral. It was a really big old church. The different to most other churches is that this one has never been finished. Sometimes they changed something or built something new. The last time they changed something was in 2009. Also the dead kings and queens from Denmark are buried there. In the late afternoon when we were back home my host Sofie and I went to her job. She trains a gymnastic group with little kids. For dinner we had pizza. At the end it was a really cool, interesting and funny day. Justine
Friday, Feb 8th: We went to school and our first lesson started at 8 o’clock. It was a German lesson and the students wrote a test. After the lesson we went to the Alhambra House – a home for unaccompanied refugees between 12 and 18 years old. The house was introduced to us on a tour and their work was explained. At 11:30 we went back to school and had lunch. In groups of 6 it was time to play our “Cultural Diversity Game” for which all countries had prepared questions before. The game was fun and we learnt a lot about the other countries and the EU. Later we played “Just Dance” and sang our “Diversity Song”. In the afternoon we went back to our host families and we talked a lot before we went to the Bowling Center. Besides bowling we had pizza. It was a nice ending of the meeting for everyone. At the same time we were all sad to leave and not see each other again. Back with the host family one more student from Spain stayed with us because his host family left for the winter holidays. So it was a little bit crazy but together we had a lot of fun this evening. This was our last day in Denmark... Leonie