Annual report 2004 - Compagnia di San Paolo

Permanent Organisations
Fondazione per la Scuola
Fondazione per la Scuola
www.fondazionescuola.it
The Fondazione per la Scuola (Foundation for Schools) is the Compagnia’s permanent
organisation specifically devoted to “working with schools”, through operational programmes on an
independent basis or developed with other institutions such as: local bodies or research institutions,
central or decentralized MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) structures or
autonomous Agencies, like INDIRE and INVALSI, newspapers and magazines, other Foundations
(Körber Stiftung, Bertelsmann Stiftung).
The Foundation’s core aim is to promote an enhancement in the quality of education as well as
furthering the knowledge and transfer of Italian and foreign innovative practices, with a focus on the
changes brought about by the introduction of school self – government.
Cooperative Networks
At national level the Foundation has long been promoting network cooperation with innovative
schools which were identified through the Concorso Centoscuole (One hundred schoolscompetition).
Currently 150 of them account for the main School Network of the Foundation, and
they are the Foundation’s privileged target in activities and research programmes.
School-targeted action include some paramount initiatives like the Accademie della Fondazione
(the Foundation’s Academies), launched for the first time in 2004 in three editions, taking place
respectively in Venice, at the Venice International University on San Servolo Island, in San Miniato
(Pisa) and in Vico Equense (Naples). Academies are training courses addressed at the nework’s
teachers and principals, on the cooperative learning approach, an innovative and effective didactic
method. With this aim, the Foundation has decided to widen the schools’ horizon adding an
international dimension to the initiative with the contribution of Canadian, Scottish, German and
Italian experts in the field of education and training.
The network system saw the creation of an internal strong “core” consisting of 70 schools, each
giving birth to an EuropaClub, (a permanent territorial centre for the popularisation of knowledge
about Europe), forming a particularly closely-knit subsystem. The third national EuropaClub
meeting was held in Naples in October and during the year Piedmont, Sicily and Lazio organised
their first EuropaClub meetings at regional level, in Ivrea, lago di Pergusa and Rome. In 2004 the
network made up of the Centoscuole Award winners incorporated as privileged interlocutors 60
schools of the Genoa and 11 of the Turin area which participated in the “Janua-Genova porta dei
mari” and “La regal Torino” programmes focussed on the museums’ historic-artistic and scientific
heritage. More than 300 Piedmont and Aosta Valley’s schools took part in the “La Stampa per
l’Europa” programme, another original initiative promoted by the Foundation in 2004 in
collaboration with “La Stampa”, the Turin newspaper, with a significant contribution of the
Compagnia di San Paolo, which extended cooperation to “Il Secolo XIX” to the benefit of schools in
Ligury. The “La Stampa per l’Europa” programme has achieved an unprecedented result in
Piedmont and in Aosta Valley: for three months thousands of students (over 7500) in secondary
schools, high schools and professional training institutes together with 500 teachers have been
“working on Europe”, coming up with projects on history, institutions, European integration related
themes and events, culture, science, sport, music. During the summer of 2004 the winners of the
Eurostory competition were announced. This is another considerable initiative launched by the
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