Description of organisation

Võru Kesklinna Kool is a public primary school situated in the town of Võru which is in the region of South-Eastern part of Estonia. Established in the year 1974 the school has been working already for 45 years and has become one of the main schools in Võru. Currently we have about 450 students from age 7 to 15 studying in our school. The staff of the school consists of teachers who are supported by the school management which all together comes about to 50 professional people.

Even though we are large and old institution we still take pride in being adaptable responding to changes and moving with the times. Our newly reevaluated core values are responsibility, teamwork, caring for others, health and interest for learning which we act by in our school. both teachers and students. Our school building is freshly renovated and equipped with up to date furniture as well with technology creating a comfortable environment for learning and for the emotional well being of our students. In addition we have put in place learning methodologies in the first two grades that is more individual and not differential with the aim of reducing school stress. We want to explain to our students early on that here we will be learning for knowledge not for graids.

Our school has also joined in different projects for making it truly the best place for studying. We are members of Eco-Schools, Anti Bullying School, Active Schools and Enterprising School. Last year Võru Kesklinna kool was awarded and defined by the Ethic Centre of Tartu University as a "Hea kool kui väärtuspõhine kool" which means a positive Value Based School. The award has come as a result of rigorous work as well as long-term analysis of all the aspects and was a huge recognition for our school.
In order to motivate students and create community feeling we have several activities that support traditional learning. Because one of our schools’ values is health we have set up a unique long break during lunch where students have time to go outside the building, breathe some fresh air and play a little which will be beneficial for their physical and mental well-being. Starting this year we also added a new subject to our curriculum which is Huvitund meaning that students can find out what they are most interested in and join that class. We have a variety of different interesting classes to offer starting with creativity and ending up with programming. The programme enables to make the curriculum more versatile and at the same time develop capabilities and skills of the students.
Our other activities also include annual fair that was initially only for for first graders has grown into a big event that takes over the whole school every year in springtime. The students have the possibility to gain experience in making the goods and also to sell and buy during the fair taking their first steps in business and economy.
Already for five years we have organised camps for our students to enable them to be more active in nature and bond with their classmates even more. Throughout the days we will be learning about useful skills to survive in the nature, teamwork, games and all of that without technology and gadgets.
April is traditionally a career month when we invite representatives of different professions to our school and go for a visit to organisations and companies. We try to make it exciting and
different each year for the students. We also include job shadowing practices and encourage our students to take part in that.
In September the annual charitable running competition takes place where all the proceeds go to support Võru Järve school sporting facilities.
Our school puts a lot of emphasis on music and students really like to express themselves through song and performing. Currently we have four music classes which put on stages musicals every year but finding the cast from the whole school. This year our school musical was nominated by programme Ettevõtlik Kool in a category of ‘’Heategu kogukonnale”. What made it really special and exciting for students too was the fact that we merged different school subjects like mother tongue, art, music, entrepreneurship into one project and involved Võru enterprises as well to help with decorations and costumes. One of our future projects is to bring to the stage võrokeelne musical performance created by our students.

Even when working on our day to day tasks we still keep the vision of Võru Kesklinna Kool in mind which is to offer quality primary education in a up-to-date safe learning and working environment in order to motivate the students and the teachers. Furthermore extra curricular activities really make us a strong happy school family. It also contributes to informal learning making the discovery of new things happen outside sometimes restrictive four walls of a classroom. We will continue working on making Võru Kesklinna kool the best place to study!

Inclusion topics

This organisation is willing to involve volunteers who face situations which make their participation in activities more difficult, from the following categories for different types of project:

• Economic obstacles
• Geographical obstacles
• Social obstacles