Give 5: A Healthy Living Toolbox – the whole school program Erasmus Project

Project Title

Give 5: A Healthy Living Toolbox – the whole school program

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: Inclusion – equity; Health and wellbeing; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

‘Give 5: A Toolbox for Healthy Living – the whole school program’ was a two-year, intercultural project. It was a strategic partnership of Poland, Romania, Spain, Italy, North Macedonia, Portugal, Lithuania and Turkey. The idea of the project came from the necessity of social inclusion and introduction of the whole school healthy living program in the partner schools. We also wanted to improve our students’ education by equipping them with basic skills and key competences as well as strengthen the qualifications of our teachers.

Our strategic partnership aimed to exchange experiences and know-how on school healthy programs between different European schools to produce the innovative ‘Give 5 – Healthy Living Toolbox – the whole school program’ – a kit for teachers and principles. The Healthy Living Toolbox contains information about the good practices, (subjects, target group, objectives, materials needed, time, comments) as well as the school living programs in the partner schools. We improved our schools’ actions to care for the students’ health to the significant degree. It can be estimated through observation of students’ behaviour, increased number of healthy living initiatives and the results of surveys. We encouraged the participation of students who belonged to minorities, socially disadvantaged and students with special educational needs because they were actively involved in our project activities.

The project followed two main directions:
– the activities for students that aimed to support social inclusion, healthy lifestyle, basic skills and key competences at the partner schools and during blended mobilities of students
– the exchange of good practices among teachers which covered 5 areas identified in our schools 3 years ago as areas that had needed improvement

The project was divided into five stages:
1.Be well: wellbeing – social skills, relationships, body language, coping with stress, healthy learning
2.Be eco: eco-friendly lifestyle: taking care for environment, school gardens
3.Be safe: safety in everyday life safety on roads, first aid, hygiene
4. Be nourished: the importance of breakfast, healthy, traditional recipes, drinking water
5.Be fit: sport: everyday gymnastics, team games

We encouraged students’ communication during the project by adding extra topic: be comunicative and thanks to it we carried out students’ virtual communication in real time and the exchange of letters and cards in addition to real meetings during the LTTAs.

The toolbox, which became the tangible product of our project contains: the description of the partner schools, the partners’ healthy living programs, the description of good practices proposed by all parners and tried out by all of us, the description of the participation in mobilities: TPMs, LTTAs, virtual mobilities. The decriptions of the dissemination in every school, the impact of the project, the students’ opinions about the LTTAs were included into the Toolbox too.

We had eight project meetings:
– 4 transnational meetings (in Poland, Turkey, Lithuania, Romania)
– 4 blended mobilities (LTTAs in Portugal, Italy, North Macedonia, Spain and 7 virtual mobilities).

The project was immersed in real-life context and offered practical solutions for effective teaching and enjoyable learning to raise pupils’ competencies to lead a healthy life during their school years and in the future. The project – based activities were integrated into the curricula of the schools and into students’ school activities connected with the schools’ existing programs. Moreover, we learned from the best practices of partner schools and cooperated with local partners from the healthy living industry. Participating teachers implemented the knowledge and abilities to create school programs, improved the quality of teaching by organizing school and abroad workshops for students. The holistic approach represented by this project turned out to be the best choice because it enabled our partner schools to introduce permanent changes in the professional develepment, school management, dissemination and the visibility of the school in the local area.

The project used the pedagogical approach of a school portfolio for self-evaluation. We worked on the project website in English, eTwinning, school blogs in national languages and social media to share our best practices. All the outcomes and events of the project were disseminated on ICT platforms to assure their sustainability.
We believe that through our project the eight partners inspired the teachers to be active, reflective professionals who took ownership of their own professional development as well as their students’ results.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 138140 Eur

Project Coordinator

Szkola Podstawowa nr 3 z Oddzialami Integracyjnymi im. Adama Mickiewicza & Country: PL

Project Partners

• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA IZBICENI
• CEIP Ciudad de Mérida
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Moure e Ribeira do Neiva
• Istituto Comprensivo”J.Stella”
• OOU “Hristijan Karposh”
• Jale Necdet Özbelge Ilkokulu
• Klaipedos Versmes progimnazija