DEMOcracy Sprouts At School Erasmus Project

Project Title

DEMOcracy Sprouts At School

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law); EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

DEMOcracy Sprouts At School is a two-year Erasmus+ project which aims to raise awareness towards democracy and to enable opportunities for students and teachers to conduct the practices of democracy in real situations on the basis of the ideas that “schools are democracy labs” and “democracy at schools is the demo version of real life democracy”. The idea of the project brings together the need of transforming schools into more democratic ones with the decisions and recommendations on democracy made by institutions of European Union.
*The project objectives are;
1. Creating awareness for democracy at schools and getting a 20% raise
2. Transforming current schools into more democratic ones by enabling students take part in school management more than %20
3. Teaching and practicing the concepts of human rights and freedom, respect to diversities, tolerance, active citizenship, justice, rule of law, equality
4. Helping the stakeholders understand that schools are for preparation of real life
5. Teaching the idea of democratic world is possible with democratic adults educated at democratic schools
6. Improving communication, collaboration and socialization among students and teachers
7. Boosting ICT skills and usage of Web 2.0 tools
8. Promoting the importance of multilingualism and gaining real-life language experience
9. Putting emphasis on European Union citizenhip and values
10. Learning different cultures and establishing a positive approach to diversities
11. Enabling students and teachers from different parts of Europe to exchange useful practices and work together on joint project-based products
12. Increasing creativity, learning motivation, mutual understanding, cooperation, analytical thinking and social inclusion
The participating organisations in the project are Escola Empuries (Spain), Demiciler Ortaokulu (Turkey), Colegiul Tehnic Danubiana Roman (Romania) and SCUOLA SECONDARIA DI I GRADO G.BOVIO (Italy). The project consists of about 1100 students at age of 10-14 including students with fewer opportunities such as educational difficulties, social, geographical and economic obstacles. 6 students and 3 teachers will be selected for each Learning Teaching Training Activities in terms of a set of criterias which will be determined by Project Management Teams at participating schools. 72 students and 36 teachers will travel for 4 LTTAs. 206 teachers, 52 administration staff members and hundreds of parents, colleagues and local authorities will take part in every stages of the project.
There will be monthly activities and LTTAs in the participating schools in two years. These activities have been decided on the basis of suitability to the objectives. The main goal of conducting these activities is to get the participants to learn and practice democracy and democracy-based values at schools as much as possible. Four LTTAs as short-term exchanges of groups of pupils will be carried out;
C1 – Democracy and Democracy in Education (March, 2021/Turkey)
C2 – Human Rights and Freedom (May, 2021/Spain)
C3 – Respect to Diversities and Tolerance (November, 2021/Italy)
C4 – European Union Citizenship (March, 2022/Romania)
Methodology of the project consists of;
a) searching, learning and improving the information on democracy and democracy based values through lessons
b) practicing democracy and democracy-based values by conducting activities, meetings, LTTAs
c) assessing the processes of learning and practicing democracy and democracy-based values by means of observation forms, tests, questionnaires and reports
d) disseminating the outcomes/results of the project to the community as wider as possible by means of meetings, materials, social media accounts, Twinspace and blog of the project.
Teachings on democracy and its values will be the main source and they will result in materials such as logo, mindmaps, presentations, worksheets, booklets, leaflets, banners, drawings, magazines, catalogue and certificates of attendance. Questionnaires, tests, observation forms, reports of LTTAs, progress/final reports will be the results of assessment in the project. Social media accounts, blog, Twinspace of the project, meetings and interviews with local people and authorities will be the results of dissemination. The project will increase the level of awareness towards democracy among stakeholders by minimum 20%.
As the impact envisaged, teachers will increase their expertise and experience in profession through exchanging the teaching methods with colleagues. Meeting new people and cultures will give a chance to improve mutual understanding, tolerance and respect of the stakeholders.
In the longer term, continuity of new useful practices on democracy will be ensured to conduct in the participating organisations. The project will be a reference to the potential projects related to democracy in Erasmus+ and eTwinning platforms. The outcomes/results will be published as open source to provide datas for academic studies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 117174 Eur

Project Coordinator

Escola Empúries & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Colegiul Tehnic Danubiana Roman
• SCUOLA SECONDARIA DI I GRADO G.BOVIO
• Demirciler Ortaokulu