Everyone in class (even in summer). Salento schools are ready: we start in July

In class even in summer. A bit to repeat the most difficult subjects but also to learn to play chess or act. Or – why not – workshops to learn the art of oratory and overcome fears of speaking in public. Salento schools join the “Summer plan” promoted by the Ministry of Education and financed with 400 million.

The project

Training, enhancement and recovery courses of 30 or 60 hours and foreign language courses of 100 hours, with a minimum of 15 students. Schools – from elementary to high school – are ready to start a series of inclusion, social and recreational activities (some as early as July). Many school managers participated in the public announcement which ended last Friday. Students will therefore be able to benefit free of charge from a varied scholastic offering available during periods of suspension of curricular teaching from this summer until the end of the next school year, through internal or external professional figures (an expert and a tutor). Schools can enrich the Plan’s offer through alliances with local authorities, universities, sports associations, voluntary and third sector centres.
«We plan to start, as soon as we have the approval and the funds, already in the month of July with a lifeguard course and other courses in the field of digital skills – explains Chiara Vantaggiato, director of the “Salvemini” Higher Institute of Alessano – . And then there are projects for padel at school, courses for basic skills for children who have educational debts and other initiatives in the sporting field. In autumn, the courses will also continue in our immersive classroom with augmented reality laboratories.”
From September, the comprehensive institute in via Manzoni di Maglie will offer activities that develop sociality among children. «We will organize nine 30-hour modules dedicated to both primary and lower secondary schools – says the head teacher Anna Rita Cardigliano. From music to singing, to sport, to the development of problem solving and critical thinking: the courses will continue all year round until summer 2025. We have decided to activate them in September, the ideal period for families and children”.
In Tricase, the teaching staff and school board of the “G.Pascoli” focus «on activities that can constitute moments of aggregation and encourage people to feel good at school, through sport, music, theatre, without however giving up activities which strengthen basic skills – explains Anna Maria Turco, school director -. We have proposed debate modules both in primary and lower secondary schools to accustom children and young people to speaking in public and to developing their Italian language skills, just as we focus on “problem solving”, with a chess workshop that stimulates critical and procedural thinking”.
Instead, there are 15 modules proposed by the “F. Bottazzi” of Casarano with courses that enhance entrepreneurial, personal, social competence and the ability to learn to learn, cultural awareness and expression, mother tongue, mathematics, science and technology, physical education and others: «We are just waiting for the authorization of the Ministry to to be able to start the courses, if some courses arrive by the summer we could activate them, we just need to understand from the Ministry what the timing will be”, says Salvatore Negro school director of Bottazzi. Wide offer also in the schools of Lecce: «We have included many sporting activities to give students the opportunity to socialize and to those who do not have the means to be able to play sports in qualified facilities such as tennis, padel, swimming, then creative activities, theatre, knowledge of the territory such as preparation for open courtyards, improvements in mathematics, in science with laboratory methodologies and much more”, concludes the head teacher Antonella Manca of the Banzi scientific high school in Lecce.
The schools, therefore, are ready. The word now passes to the families who – probably – will be happy to find a job for their children (also saving a little on the very expensive summer camps). And to the students who, perhaps, will be less happy to return to those desks only after a few weeks.

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