Building resilience of students to improve positive outcomes Erasmus Project

Project Title

Building resilience of students to improve positive outcomes

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Health and wellbeing; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The project came about due to a significant increase over time of additional support being made available to students suffering from anxiety, particularly linked to exam pressure. The ability of VWNC students to perform under pressure has become a serious issue for both the college and the students, impacting on the results they achieve and their preparedness for progression onto university and employment and the pressures they will face in those environments. Current strategies support students with stress and anxiety to some extent, but are not always proving to be very effective at improving performance of the students under pressure.

Although it is accepted that for all people exams, assessments or presentations can be a stressful experience, a growing number of young people seem ill equipped with the strategies to cope and this can disproportionately affect their outcomes and hence life chances.

The project’s overarching aim was to address this particular need which is increasing and impacting on the well-being of young people as well as giving students, teachers and trainers from participating institutions an opportunity to share their own perceptions on dealing with issues around pressure, and trial new strategies as adopted by partner institutions to help foster resilience and to reduce anxiety. It is hoped that this will aid students to perform better under pressure and get the best possible results from their courses. In addition, the project strategies strategies will help students to cope better with the transition to higher education and employment.

Objectives
• Identify and implement strategies at the point of enrolment and on programme to build resilience in order to develop a more self-assured student.
• Engage with students to develop appropriate student centred approaches for dealing with pressure and improving outcomes.
• Share best practice with fellow professionals to improve the effectiveness of support.
• Carry out student surveys to measure the impact of the project.
• Develop a range of strategies to support the transition to higher education and employment.

Needs and Target Groups
The project focused on the needs of two different groups. Firstly, students with anxiety who are undertaking exam based qualifications and secondly students on exam based qualifications not currently presenting any symptoms of anxiety. This is in recognition that some strategies will be preventative whilst others will help minimise anxiety levels. While the UK group focused on those undertaking A Levels and/or Applied General qualifications, the project partners selected groups that undertake appropriate assessments that require students to perform under pressure and deal with any potential anxiety issues to ensure they perform to their full potential.

Transnationally
VWNC students come from a range of schools with no discernible differences in terms of student resilience to the pressures of exam performance. As there is no hard evidence of work being undertaken in the UK to address this issue, we are therefore currently following what would be best practice in terms of support for these students in the UK and it is not having the type of impact we would expect. This project was carried out transnationally in order to explore significantly different practices and determine whether strategies practices in different countries are proving effective in improving performance students. We undertook a proper assessment by both looking at our own practices and comparing them internationally with the aim of developing new approaches that will have the potential to significantly improve the outcomes for students and develop an approach that can be utilised across a range of different institutions in the UK and Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 47005 Eur

Project Coordinator

West Nottinghamshire College of Further Education, Mansfield & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Berufsbildende Schulen des Landkreises Osnabrück Brinkstrasse
• Jyväskylän koulutuskuntayhtymä