Reach for the Stars Erasmus Project

Project Title

Reach for the Stars

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

• Context/background of the project;
Reach for the Stars project was planned in order to support collaborative professional development between the five partner schools. The idea was to share expertise in different areas to enhance the quality of teaching and learning for each school community. This was to be achieved through job shadowing, sharing good practices, CPD courses and developed resources to extend pupils basic skills in Literacy and Numeracy through improved pedagogy using assessment for learning (AfL) strategies as well as parental engagement in pupil learning.
• Objectives;
We developed professional learning communities to produce programmes, courses and opportunities to up skill teacher knowledge. As a group of likeminded schools this was a vital strategy to develop innovative educational experiences across an EuropeanTasks and key project themes. Skill sets developed were:
Finland: Pedagogical drama, content based learning and Cognitively Guided Instruction.
Sweden: Mathematics.
Iceland: Team work in different ways and outdoor learning.
Wales: Assessment for learning and parental engagement
• Number and profile of participating organisations;
From Finland around 200 pupils aged 6 – 12 years participated as well as 20 teachers and teaching assistants
From Iceland around 209 pupils aged 4 – 9 years participated as well 52 teachers and teaching assistants
From Sweden around 295 pupils and 26 teachers and support staff were involved
From the two schools in Wales around 848 pupils participated and 75 teachers and support staff were involved
• Description of main activities undertaken;
Finland
Main activities undertaken included enhancing creative learning by using pedalogical drama. First there was a workshop for the staff in Finland and then during the mobility there were workshops for the partners and school staff in Finland. There was an additional training workshop held by an expert from the theatre of Varkous. The partners shared books of traditional tales, shadowed teachers and participated in lessons then the activities were implemented with students and staff in our own countries.
Wales:
Main activities undertaken by the Welsh schools was presentation of AfL strategies, Effective feedback and pupil engagement. Workshops were set up to present the benefits of AfL and practical use of these strategies were observed during classroom observations. Staff from the two schools and external providers introduced training sessions to extend staff CPD on Effective feedback. Pupil learning profiles, methods of data collection and engaging families were also presented . LEA representative input allowed further opportunities to share the experiences with other schools within the LEA. Resources such as AfL cards, presentations and useful webpage links etc have been shared with all representatives.
Iceland
The objective was to enhance outdoor activities and team work. The outdoor-teacher led a training session in Iceland about the planning and showed pictures to explain the whole school processes. They planned an outdoor day so that the partners could try out and actively participate in outdoor activities with the pupils. There was also a team-work element to the day and various staff talked about this during a focused team-work presentation. All partners were then challenged to develop these areas in their own school communities.
Sweden
The objective was to share mathematical curriculum through problem solving involving subtraction (which was deemed an area of weakness by our schools). Each country prepared before the meeting, where subtraction methods and problem solving activities were collated and examples provided for discussion. During this mobility we had two workshops where the teachers from the different school communities were sharing their practice, discussing the similarities and differences and analysing the use of their own strategies. These discussions were then continued in each school community and tasks were shared. Once back in their own schools the participants set about working with staff and pupils to develop mathematical games and problem solving calendars. These games allowed staff and pupils the opportunity to share new strategies. Through collaboration these games were shared between the schools giving purpose and audience to mathematical activities.
Results
Main aims and objectives of the project were achieved and each partner school have introduced or incorporated different elements from the experiences gained into their own teaching and learning methods. Longer term benefits are cross curricular activities, improved teacher pedagogy, motivated teachers who plan more interesting and stimulating curricular activities for the next generation of students. Students higher order reading skills have improved across the different schools and pupil engagement has improved, especially the more vulnerable, due to more practical activities being planned and executed.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99413 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ysgol Gymraeg Ffwrnes & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Krikaskoli
• Lehtoniemen koulu/Varkaus
• Ysgol Pen Rhos
• Vidhögeskolan