INCLUSION ON THE WAY TO EUROPE Erasmus Project

Project Title

INCLUSION ON THE WAY TO EUROPE

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: Inclusion – equity; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project is aimed to promote the inclusion of excluded students, the ones with lack of basic skills, the risk of dropping out, with special needs by helping to promote their integration into the mainstream education and society and to apply new strategies for overcoming learning difficulties in STEAM subjects. The other objectives are to conduct new methods in the field of social and emotional child development as part of students with special educational needs’ practical curriculum and to give teachers different methods of education and share the good practices. Four schools from Lithuania, Sweden, Romania and Turkey were collaborating in the project. The Italian partner refused to participate in the project due to the staff changes in the school. Italian school about withdrawal informed all partners at the very beginning- so the changes of project were successfully planned and the tasks were shared among the partners in advance. The project concerned pupils aged 13-17. The project focused on the problem of social exclusion (based on lack of basic skills). In order to reach this goal of inclusion partners practiced new strategies and methods of teaching cooperatively and inclusively at schools and during leisure time activities. All activities referred to the particular needs of students, according to the needs analysis which took place at the all partner schools. At the beginning of this project, all partners discussed and defined 4 problems which prevent school success. They included lack of social inclusion, lack of basic skills, lack of parental support and finally lack of socio-economical needs. The needs analysis had been done at four schools by teachers’ observation, sharing ideas and applying basic survey which evaluated these four obstacles. As a result, in the LT the problem of lack of social inclusion and parental support did not exist, but we needed to develop the level of basic skills and help students who lack socio-economical needs. Other schools had problems, more or less, with this fourth issue. At Romanian school, “lack of social inclusion and basic skills ” of the students seemed to be the most important problem in term preventing students from adapting academic success. In Turkish and Swedish schools “lack of basic skills, lack of parental support and lack of socio-economic needs” became the key reasons for failure. Besides, each school had different good practices in their school curriculum. They were observed and followed by the teachers and transferred after evaluation. The strategies and methods which we agreed upon to apply embody plenty of ideas which stand for a real alternative to solve these four problems. Before creating this project we had a pre-work period about the new strategies and defined 5 new ones to use in our project. Every partner applied these methods in its school environment, observed and evaluated the outcomes. During the meetings these outcomes were discussed by all the partners and transferred to one another. At the end of 2 year time, 5 strategies had been applied and evaluated. According to the observation and results of success the partners will continue to use these strategies and methods at their schools. Through our project the four partners created both short-term and long-term tangible and intangible results to achieve the biggest possible impact. There were 2 transnational meetings and 3 short-term learning activities. Despite of the fact related to withdrawal of Italian partner all activities were implemented, as well as results. Partners created a set of methodological brochures, which could be used in any European school about implementing PBL, personalisation, peer- tutoring, cooperative learning and team teaching, based on good practices. All schools worked on integrating these strategies in school curriculum and prepared lesson plans, based on the best experience. The strategies and methods provided effective solutions to problems of lack of social inclusions and lack of basic skills, increased enthusiasm for school and responsible behaviour, promoted equality, tolerance, active EU citizenship. There were short term exchange activities for pupils to implement the topics (strategies) and all the subtopics of the project and working cooperatively they created a lot of unexpected results such as informative movies, historical/cultural researches, booklets and posters. Working in groups with students from different countries they improved English language, ICT skills became more aware to European values. Teachers and coordinators of the project had opportunity to transfer good practices, to compare different educational systems in order to work more effectively. Partnership collaboration encourage new ideas for collaboration on eTwinning and designing a new ka229 Erasmus project in the nearest future .

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 89730 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kauno ”Vyturio” gimnazija & Country: LT

Project Partners

• Stålforsskolan Sf2
• Ibrahim Tanriverdi Sosyal Bilimler Lisesi
• Istituto Omnicomprensivo di Istruzione Superiore di Montenero
• Colegiul Tehnic “Petru Poni” Roman