1) School.
Our school is the ‘Vrije Sint-Lambertusscholen’ in Westerlo. Westerlo is a village, situated about 50 kilometres from Brussels and 50 kilometres from Antwerp. Our school has 1800 pupils and 220 teachers. Our pupils are between 12 and 19 years old. The students who are going to participate in the project are between 14 and 18 years of age. Most of them (pupils as well as teachers) come to school by bike.

Our school offers a wide range of programmes on three different levels: (a) general education (Latin, modern languages, sciences …); (b) technical education (informatics, electricity, beauty-care ...); (c) vocational education (wood-working, welding, nursery, fashion …). We are also good at sports. We are, for example, well known for our football and volleyball teams (boys as well as girls) and we organise a cross country (running) each year, which attracts a lot of runners from others schools in the region. We have been active in European projects and exchanges for about 10 years. And finally, what are we especially proud of? We are very, very proud of our wonderful pupils.

2) The headmasters.
The present team of 3 headmasters ( Ms Hilde De Busser, Mr Fons Mertens and Mr Jef Van Eynde) has been in charge of the Vrije Sint-Lambertusscholen for seven years now.
Internationalization is an aspect which we try to integrate in the educational programme of our pupils since 1998.
We consider looking beyond frontiers as an added value and support all actions taken by our teachers to implement this vision. Bringing pupils into contact with European cultural diversity gives them a solid basis on which open mindedness and tolerance can grow.

The importance of being able to speak English, French or German in practical communicative situations increases their motivation to study these modern foreign languages. On top of that international project meetings held either abroad or in our own school gives each time again a new elan in our school.It raises the professional enthousiasm of participating teachers and the motivation of our pupils. In short, internationalization is like a wind that gives both teachers and pupils new and fresh air. It gives way to new ideas, to educational improvements for both supporting and teaching staff our pupils can only profit from in the long run.

3) Mission Statement.
Our mission statement is best summarized in the following mindmap, which was created two years ago.

4) Our international activities.
Our school has been involved in Comenius projects since 1999. Our most recent projects are:
-Comenius project: Healthy and Active Europe, 2006-2008
-Comenius project: From trash to treasure, 2007-2009
-Comenius project: Eurocitizenlink, 2007-2009
http://www.schooljournals.net/eurocitizenlink/
We also organise exchanges on an annual basis:
-Belgian classes – classes from the Netherlands
-Flemish classes – classes from the French community

5) Visiting teacher: Wim Michiel.
My name is Wim Michiel. I am male, I am 36 years old and I teach English, German, Dutch and a ‘holocaust’-project. My students are about 16-18 years old. Besides teacher, I am also the co-ordinator of the third grade (theoretical-technical level). I studied German and English at the university of Antwerp and philosophy at the university of Leipzig (Germany). I am married and I have two wonderful daughters: Elena (6) and Sara Kalkidan (2,5). My hobbies: I like reading, walking, running and travelling. It will be my first visit to India – so I am very curious about this interesting country and its people.

6) Website of our school.

www.silawesterlo.be

This document is written by Wim Michiel