The First International Conference of Comenius College, October 13, 14 and 15, 2008It is an honour and a pleasure to invite you on behalf of the board of directors of the Dutch Comenius College to our first International conference. Our college is situated in the Netherlands, in Capelle aan den IJssel, a town on the eastern side of one of the world's largest harbours, the city of Rotterdam. Comenius College is a large comprehensive school with about 3800 pupils and includes all levels known in Dutch education. Seven separate schools within easy reach of each other and of Rotterdam form the Comenius College. That means that our level of education ranges from Grammar school to vocational training. Besides training our pupils for exams and civic duty we introduce them to the fact that we all are a part of a larger community. Whether that means the European Community or the world as a whole is academic. For years our college has regarded international contacts as a priority, so we have plenty of contacts and projects which are of a large diversification. We have for instance already participated in MISE; Europe, a challenge and EUCLIFF: European Cultural Investigation for the Future. In the near future we hope to participate in CYES: Critical Young European Students and in YEUCS: Young European Crime Solvers. We organize two exchange programmes as well, one with the Greeks students of the First Experimental Lyceum 'Genadio' in Athens and one with the Spanish students of I.E.S. Joan Brandieu in Seu d'Urgell. Comenius College would like to expand the number of international projects to all levels in our school. That means that on a yearly basis we would like to involve some 350 pupils in international projects. Together with our international partners we would like to organize several projects for three different age categories: 11 till 15, 13 till 16 and 14 till 19 years of age. In the past Comenius College joined international forces with many schools in Europe. Many of the projects were very successful, so we would like to include as many projects as possible in our standard curriculum. THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF COMENIUS COLLEGE
To be able to achieve this memorable goal Comenius College plans to organize a three-day conference on October 13th till 15th 2008 with some thirty of our international partner schools (see annex). Together we would like to investigate which new projects may be possible between Comenius College and her partners. Possibly our international partners will also form lasting contacts with each other. For the provisional programme, see annex. We would like to invite two colleagues of each school, preferably one member of the board of directors and one colleague who specializes in international projects and contacts. Members of the Dutch National Agency have also agreed to support us in establishing promising contacts. We hope you will be willing to accept our invitation. Attendance at the conference is free of charge. The Dutch National Agency assured us of the possibilities to apply successfully for a grant to cover costs of transportation and stay at you own National Agencies. The addresses will be found at http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/llp/national_en.html . For further information please contact us at nwmbogaard@comenius.nl or visit www.comenius.nl | 
Programme.pdf