Clown and inclusion in school Erasmus Project

Project Title

Clown and inclusion in 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 : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

BACKGROUND/CONTEXT/OBJECTIVES
Children with difficulties, such as disabilities, language barriers, familial and social issues, suffer from a lack of inclusion within the education system.
These children need to feel welcomed into a caring and safe academic environment in order to recover their self-esteem and ability to progress.
Furthermore, teaching professionals are always searching for innovative tools to support student inclusion within their classroom or the group and their adult role in relation to each other as towards the group.
Les Matapeste have for the past 35 years developed an adult clowning pedagogy and propose an adaptation for children with the aim of promoting inclusion.
Indeed clowning philosophy , «laughting at oneself shared with others » is rich in lessons for the individual as well as the group. The ‘other’ being the spectator, the essential counterpart of the clown.
-For the individual : a better sense of self – acceptance, self-confidence and self-esteem. Shared laughter creates a feeling of empathy with others.
-For the group: group cohesion allowing each individual to feel accepted and acknowledged.
Only a collaboration between teachers, educators and specialist in psycho- pedagogy, with a variety of complimentary competencies, can successfully run such a project.
Clown pedagogy inspires the tools and pedagogical process created to answer the needs of a wide spectrum of situations children might face.

PARTICIPANTS: 4 partners, 23 people
-SCOP Matapeste comprises 2 clown pedagogists, 2 thérapist clowns; 2 teachers from french college of Prahecq (no partner)
-Foundation Parada in Bucharest (refuge for street children) has 1 pedagogical educator, 1 psychologist, 1 psycho-pedagogist, 2 socio-cultural coordinators et 3 volontary teachers (School N°95 takes some of Parada’s children )
– Psychology Unit of of Université Libre de Bruxelles has 3 specialized psycho-pedagogists
-Public Elementary school of Prahecq has 4 teachers
N.B. The 6 teachers of the 2 Prahecq institutions , each host a ULIS class  (Units for Inclusive Education) and are accustomed to working together.
N.B. The french college of La Crèche, partner from the outset, resigned at beginning of the project

ACTIVITIES LED:
During the 3 training workshops and the 4 trans-national meetings, 3 modules of exercice-games were designed in order to reach the goal in 3 steps, with focus on the a progression through each module.
– Module 1- Establishing a group where everyone feels confident
– Module 2 – Supporting each individual to feel confident presenting themselves in front of the group
-Module 3 – Being able to ‘ act’ out a failure, confusion or ridicule, while making others laugh

In parallel , 3 essential processes for the modules to succeed were implemented
-1- Support of the children from teachers and educators leading the exercice-games
-2- Implementation of «collective intelligence », a contribution from Émilie Brébant of ULB.
-3- implementation of an evaluation process using questionnaires for the children and reports by the adults.
This work engaged all partners in an act of co- creations (23 people)
Between each working session, experimental sessions with the children were led in order to perfect the tools and processes used.

RESULTS & IMPACT ACHIEVED: 
Games from the first two modules and the 3 processes have been tested by children in both institutions of Prahecq (10 implicated classes), in the Bucharest School N°95 ( 2 classes), as well as Parada Foundation (1 group).
The third module is currently under design and was not tested with children.

In Prahecq and Bucharest (cf testimonies): 
– Mixing ULIS children with the other children in games was a surprising success
– Improved cohesion in the classes implicated
– In the college: “volontary” sessions have been so successful that numbers of pupils had to be limited. Teachers introduced this practice at the beginning of school year with 5 of sixth-grade classes to promote cohesion.
-Bucharest teachers are more and more engaged
Overall, there was increased motivation throughout the implementation of the project.

THE FUTURE:
A second project is set up to finetune the tools and processes, taking on lessons learned in the past sessions with children.
– Perfecting the 1st and 2nd modules
– Finalising the design of the third module
-Perfecting the three modules, focusing on the evaluation process using common tools
– Facilitating experimental conditions with the children from Parada Foundation
– Partenaring with Brussels school to work with children who are new migrants comers
– Developping 2 projects aimed at european professionals: a digital platform with practical tools, a complete training program with knowledge learned certification.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 48716,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

SCOP LES MATAPESTE & Country: FR

Project Partners

• FUNDATIA PARADA
• école elementaire publique Prahecq
• UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
• Collège Jean Vilar