Gimnazjum nr 2 im Jana Pawła II in Stalowa Wola
Gimnazjum nr 2 im Jana Pawła II is one of the eight middle schools in Stalowa Wola that offers secondary education to students aged 13-16. There are 56 highly qualified and experienced teachers working in the school. The school takes great pride in the students’ achievements both in knowledge contests and in sport competitions. The students get the highest marks in external examinations and continue further studying in good secondary schools in Stalowa Wola . The school prepares the students to mature, responsible life and encourages them to invest in their own future. We are constantly improving the teaching methods to provide the highest standards of education. The focus on stable comprehensive development of key competences (speaking foreign languages, ICT skills, communicative and other social skills) allows our students to function properly in the modern society and ensure employability in the future. The teachers are very open to new ideas and experiences. They willingly involve in various projects to exchange experience, share with new approaches, learn new methods and forms of teaching and enhance cooperation. They take up various forms of in-service training and form working groups to solve the problems that appear at school. There is a number of documents that regulate the functions of school and make the school a friendly place for both students and teachers. The school follows and respects the principles and values propagated by its patron – John Paul II.
The school’s policy
Our school offers general education to students aged 13-16 that we want to prepare to mature life and encourage to invest in their future by offering high standards of education. We are concentrated on the active development of our school mostly by trying new methods of teaching and getting into pedagogical innovations. The school’s main aim is to adjust to students’ educational needs. At the same time we are very open to new ideas and solutions the other European schools have. We are trying to do our best to improve our work in a significant way by constant observation of the teaching results, cooperation with partners supporting our work, comparison and sharing experience. The whole organization of the school work is directed to raising the quality of educational and upbringing process.
School staff
The school running body is the commune Stalowa Wola which exercises the administrative and financial supervision of the school. The pedagogical supervision is exercised by the Subcarpathian Education Superintendent, the chief executive officer at the regional level who implements the national educational policy. The major school organs are: the school head, two school head deputies, the pedagogical council, the school council, the parents’ council, students’ council. All the school organs functioning in the school cooperate in the realization of the general and specific aims of the school. The roles and tasks of each organ are defined in the School Statute, the most important document functioning at school. There are two pedagogs and a psychologist who support the teachers’ upbringing activities, coordinate preventive activities, deal with career counselling, organize various forms of psychological care, carry out research. The school employs 68 highly qualified teachers (most of them are appointed or chartered according to the professional degrees standards ) that are constantly improving their competencies by taking up in-service training in various subjects related to education. The teachers realize educational and upbringing tasks individually or form assignment groups which concentrate on specific problems to solve. Some subject teachers are appoionted by the school head to take responsibility of form teachers. Their main role is taking care of an individual group of students forming a class concentrating mainly on the integration, socializing, cooperation, recognizing students’ needs, solving problems, contacts with parents.
The school documents.
The most important document that functions in the school is the School Statute. It is directly based on the School Education Act of 7 September 1991 ( with further amendments) and the Act of 8 January 1999 on the Implementation of the School Reform (with further amendments). The School Education Act is guided by the principles contained in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, The Convention on the Rights of the Child. The major tasks and aims defined in the School Education Act overlap with the aims and tasks contained in the School Statute of Gimnazjum nr 2 im Jana Pawła II.
They are as follows:
- the school develops the sense of responsibility, admiration to fatherland, respect to the national cultural heritage, openess to the European and wolds’ cultures
- the school provides students with the conditions necessary for their personal development – the school prepares to fulfil the students’ family and civil responsibilities
- the school implements the right of each citizen of the Republic of Poland to education and the right of children and youth to be educated and cared for
- the school supports the family’s educational role – the school adjusts the content, methods and organization of teaching to students’ psychological and phisical abilities
- the school diminishes educational inequalities between urban and rural areas – the school provides care for the disabled and socially maladjusted children
- the school provides care for particularly gifted students – the school provides care for the students in a difficult financial situation
- the school adjusts to the labour market needs
- the school creates safe and hygienic conditions for students to learn
- the school disseminates the environmental education – the school organizes individual teaching andremedial classes for SEN students
- the school provides career guidance to students
The School Statute
The School Statute defines the principles and rules that have to be followed in the school. The respective articles of the Statute regulate the responsibilities of all the organs working in the school as well as the teaching and administrative staff. An important part of the School Statute is the article concerning evaluation, the rules of promoting students to the next class, the way of carrying out internal and external examinations. The document also indicates the ways of cooperation with students’ parents and regulates the principles of organization of teaching process, upbringing and care. In one of the articles of the Statute the students’ rights and duties are defined and the procedures concerning getting rewards and reprimands are described. Evaluation This aspect of our school life is extremely important. All the rules concerning evaluation of both educational progress and upbringing are defined in the School Statute and the School Internal Evaluation Programme. Moreover individual subject evaluation system is created and updated each year. The school statute and other documents that refer to evaluation define precisely the demands required for each grade: excellent, very good, good, fair, satisfactory, unsatisfactory. The students have the right to know the way of evaluation, this process is overt. The teachers try to concentrate on the control of the frequency rate to prevent truancy.
Pedagogical innovations
In the last two years the school was involved in the implementation of two innovative programmes related to foreign language teaching and European dimension in teaching. Both these programmes are supervised by the Subcatpathian Education Superintendent. We are very open to adjust our standards and forms of teaching to students’ needs that is why we form classes profiled in accordance to some specific students’ interests, the demand of the modern world and especially the labour market needs. Such a practice is still not very common in the Polish schools but we observe much interests from students and their parents’ side what encourages us to continue it in the following years. General characteristic of the innovative programme concerning the development of language skills. The main aim of the program is development of linguistic skills and it is directed to students with high linguistic competences or having capability to achieve such competences. Nowadays there is a great demand for teaching foreign languages and students and parents are becoming more and more interested in setting up linguistic classes. Observing students’ achievements in getting various linguistic skills it is obvious that they do not reach the same level of competencies regardless the methods and forms of work introduced by teachers. The differences are noticeable and they derive from students’ potential abilities, intelligence, the level and kind of motivation to work, strategies of teaching, involvement in the learning process. By offering the special kind of education directed to particularly gifted students and taking their individual potential capabilities into account we provide conditions to students’ comprehensive development. In the contemporary European education there is a tendency to individualize the educational process and create the best teaching conditions adequate to students’ needs and preferences. The process of selection to some specialized classes according to students’ abilities at the level of lower secondary school still raises a lot of controversies but it can also bring a lot of benefits and turn out to be very creative. Many gifted students left without the proper care and interest from their teachers and parents’ side are not able to discover the whole potential of their talents. Such students require the application of a wide range of activating methods and forms of work and making their work more intensive. Moreover there is a need to expand the range of knowledge, involve students in interesting initiatives inside or outside the school, learn how to use all kinds of sources to gain knowledge. It seems to be reasonable to create good conditions to particularly gifted students. A group of such students will be able to use their potential in a maximum way by using prepared didactic materials, active involvement in European projects, presentation of our school during local, regional or national contests, dissemination of language learning. Their active involvement will be a good investment in their future professional career. One of the most important elements in the implementation of the program is learning a foreign language as a tool for gaining knowledge about other subjects. In the curriculum it is planned to teach subjects such as history or geography in English. Another important aspect of the project is increasing the number of English lessons per week (basically in average classes there are 3 hours of English per week). The students in the language class take part in the activities related to the English and American culture, history, traditions. They organize contests, festivals to celebrate English and American holidays.
Achievements
Gimnazjum nr 2 im Jana Pawła II in Stalowa Wola is the school with the largest amount of students who achieved very high marks in the subject contests organized at the regional level among all the students in our town. We are also very proud of the significant achievements in the field of sport especially volleyball, basketball, karate, table tennis. Particularly gifted students have a very good opportunity to develop their interests during extra classes.
Promotion of school
The school organizes The Open School Day to present its achievements and to attract students finishing primary schools. There are some presentations and dispalys. We try to invite the local press and television to advertise our school.
Contact Address: Poland, 37-450 Stalowa Wola, ul. Mickiewicza 15
Telephone: (+48) 0-15 8426383
Website: www.gim2stalowawola.pl