Inspire ChildrenMake a difference in school policyPartners in Europe presentAssemble knowledgeCreate ProjectsTeachers improve education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Inspire ChildrenMake a difference in school policyPartners in Europe presentAssemble knowledgeCreate ProjectsTeachers improve education

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Context/background of the project:
Against a background of a more globalizing world and at the same time upcoming nationalism in several European countries, perhaps threatening the core values of the EU, this project not only acknowledges the importance of European cooperation, but strengthened the realisation that no longer you are a citizen of your village, city or country, but that you are a European citizen. The future of Europe lies in the way we raise its leaders of the future. They happen to be in primary school at the moment. It is very difficult to get every politician of today on board on the European ideology, but with the leaders of tomorrow we have a chance. This project stressed the added value of European cooperation by creating joint concrete projects to be executed in their classes, improving education by learning from each other and developing sustainable internationalisation policy in schools. In order to achieve this, we organized every Teacher Training Week (TTW) based on two topics/thematic fields. These thematic fields are based on the European Teacher Competences, developed by Michael Schratz (http://www.sdcentras.lt/pla/res/Schratz.pdf).

Objectives:
1. To inspire children through their participation in concrete projects that challenge them by working with children from other countries in Europe.
2. To improve education in schools that join the IMPACT-project.
3. To develop school policy on internationalisation. They will use an assessment instrument called the “internationalisation scale”.

Number and profile of participating organisations:
This application was the first joint application of a teacher training university (Saxion University) and a primary school (Obs Stedeke) in the Netherlands.
The project started with 6 partners from 5 countries. One primary school from every country and Saxion University from the Netherlands.
During the project the number of participating primary schools gradually expanded up to 15 primary schools, 3 schools from every partner country.
A primary school from Finland also joined the project for the final 3 TTWs, which made the total of participating schools 16.

Description of undertaken main activities;
We achieved our principal objectives by having organised five Teacher Training Weeks (TTW) for teachers of primary schools, The training weeks will be prepared during 3 steering group meetings (SGM):
Date, Activity, Location, Number of participants
2016 October, Steering Group Meeting 1, The Netherlands, 6
2017 March, Teacher Training Week 1, Spain, 15
2017 November, Teacher Training Week 2, Portugal, 20
2017 November, Steering Group Meeting 2, Portugal, 6
2018 March, Teacher Training Week 3, The Netherlands, 25
2018 November, Teacher Training Week 4, Italy, 25
2018 November, Steering Group Meeting 3, Italy, 6
2019 March, Teacher Training Week 5, The Netherlands, 30

Main activities during a TTW were:
– Writing improving education plan.
– Writing developing internationalization policy with long and short term goals.
– Setting up a mini-project
– School and cultural visits
– Filling in internationalization barometer
– Key-note speakers and lectures about topics TTW

Results and impact attained:
During the almost 3 years of the IMPACT project, 2140 children have been actively involved in the project by participating in different mini projects made public on Twinspace.

IMPACT Facebook page was active during the project development, allowing dissemination of good practises from mini projects and the spreading of the message of European friendship and cooperation between partner schools. On 10th June 2019 the Facebook IMPACT page records 859 likes, 871 followers and a range of up to 2500 people in more than 14 countries reached in each message. For further information see the specific report.

34 mini-projects were run by 16 different schools in 6 countries. All school have made educational changes to improve their teaching.
All school have made progress on their level of internationalisation and possess a European network and knowledge about eTwinning and Twinspace that they can use the coming years.

Longer-term benefits:
1. School managements started with implementing the internationalisation policies in their school. The project was for most of them the starting point.
2. Teachers see the value of international cooperation. After executing the mini-projects teacher will work together again in the next schoolyear. Contact between schools will stay.
3. Mini-project will be used as good practices for the students of the teacher training college at Saxion university. For students a perfect opertunity to start thinking about their on ideas on internationalisation in schools.
4. Forms and good practices stay availeble for all who are interested on our Twinspace page. If they have questions they can contact Saxion university.
5. Endresults of the project will be presented during national and international meetings or conferences.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 141099 Eur

Project Coordinator

STICHTING SAXION & Country: NL

Project Partners

• AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS JOSÉ RÉGIO – PORTALEGRE
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO “ROCCO MONTANO”
• Obs Stedeke
• Escola Joan Sallares i Pla
• Ozel Bursa Sinav Ilkokulu (Deneyim Ozel Egitim Hizmetleri Tic. LTD. Sirketi)