Estonian

City	Website	Legal name	Type of Organization
Mustla	http://www.tarvastu.vil.ee	Tarvastu Gumnaasium	General education (secondary level)

Tarvastu Gymnasium is a comprehensive school situated in a rural area in the southern part of Estonia, in Viljandi county. Currently we have 250 pupilss studying in our scool, out of which 92 study in elementary level (forms 1-4), 118 in basic school (forms 5-9), and 40 students in secondary school level (forms 10-12). Our school staff consists of 43 teachers and 43 non-pedagogic staff.

For supporting the education of SEN students, the school has a social pedagogue, a speech therapist working in it as well as 3 specialized study support specialists who assist SEN pupils during regular classes as well as helping them integrate into common learning environment. Our school pays a lot of attention on developing IT skills in our pupils. We have 2 computer labs with PCs and a multimedia classroom where pupils obtain knowledge how to use different multimedia gadgets (such as Ipads and various Bots) for personal development and learning.

The IT environment in our school is assisted by an IT-specialist. WiFi connection is all over our school territory. We also have a separate school library with an assisting teacher who guides pupils’ reading habits and reading choices. Our activity leader helps with the choices of extra-curricular activities which we have multiple of: various sports trainings, robotics, folk and pop dance courses, multimedia training, LARP, drama and science courses as well as different subect-based extra courses. There is a very active art and music school connected to our school releasing talented musicians and artists every year. Tarvastu Gymnasium has a very close cooperation with local community, local government and kindergartens around our area. We also work together with universities organising regular workshops.

Our mission is to be an environment for a versatile development of the learner, supporting life-long learning. Our aim is that everyone must gain from our school equally and contribute according to one’s capabilities and possibilities. We value children’s health and promote healthy lifestyle. We wish our pupils to have an excellent command of their mother tongue.

With the current project we will have all language and music teachers, support specialists (a speech therapist) and an IT and art teacher closely cooperating as our aim is to raise pupils’ reading ability, which is considered a crucial part of children’s creative thinking and success in all school subjects. Proper functional reading ability has decreased vastly in recent years. It is our big concern, and we are glad to be a part of the project which aims to improve the situation. Our facilities are compatible, as well as our specialists to support the project as well as gain out of it. The common European breathing is also relevant for us in order to broaden our pupils’ minds, obtain good cooperation skills and raise awareness of being an European citizen.