TOWARDS UTOPIA – BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE FUTURE Erasmus Project

Project Title

TOWARDS UTOPIA – BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE FUTURE

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; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Unmotivated students are a reality that teachers face nowadays. Unmotivated attitude toward learning and frustration sometimes comes when they should learn subjects that seem to have no relevance to real life. This also leads to under achievement and often to dropping out of school. Our project helped the students to apply their theoretical school knowledge to practical work and to improve their 21st century skills. This project used inclusive methodologies, based on team and collaborative work, with activities that will lead to changes in their motivation for study and self-improvement.
Concerning the teachers, methodologies leading to a creative education have been used, inclusive strategies such as: taking approaches to welcoming diversity; problem-solving methods; learner-centered teaching; interactive teaching and learning; collaborative learning.. all these to improve students’ skills.
Then, concerning the objetives we have:
– Promoted the international scope of our school and community, offering interaction with people from other countries.
– Promoted innovative educational strategies using methods of teaching to deal with the different abilities, interests and expectations of our pupils.
– Improved in all the participants 21st century skills, such as language and digital skills (ICT), creativity autonomy, innovation and self-confidence.
– Developed teamwork and collaboration between teachers of different subjects.
– Improved the interaction between families, teachers and pupils aimed to solve common problems.
– Acknowledged the competences and qualifications achieved by the participants in the mobilities, using official school certificates.
– Strengthened emotional skills in all areas of personality and relationships with others.
– Enhanced creativity and critical thinking in teachers and students so that they can face challenges successfully.

The schools involved have been I.I.S Primo Levi in Italy, IESO Quercus in Spain, The Weald Community School in UK and the RSG Slingerbos|Levant in the Netherlands.
The Italian school is a big school with a big variety of students. the presence of many foreign students who come to their region and start learning in their school, often without knowing the Italian language, have permitted them to develop the school’s skills in the teaching process.
The English school offers many exciting opportunities for all students. Its innovative practice, combining contemporary research with traditional methods in the classroom, leads to a record of excellent examination results.
The Dutch school has a bilingual stream in English, . ICT in teaching has been embedded for years,and new teaching methodologies are applied.
Finally, the Spanish school has experience in collaborative work. New teaching/learning methodologies are very present in the Spanish school concerns.
Then, the activities carried out in this project have been:
– A transnational meeting for starting the project.
– 4 mini-project challenges based on Science and Technology, Sustainability, Music, Arts & Literacy and Maths & ICT
– Four short-term exchanges of group of pupils, based on the mini-project carried out (one of them has been in our own country), which have allowed students work out a challenge and participate in different activities in a foreign country, incorporating their families in it and have helped teachers see and show different approaches for teaching.
-20 Long-term mobilites for pupils, which allowed some pupils spend 2/3 months in another country.
As a result of this project we had:
– 4 booklets from every mini-project (mentioned above) and 16 good practice example presentations as results of all the activities carried out in the project. In every booklet we have 12 or more lessons on teaching transversal skills using collaborative methods for different subjects (Maths, Geography, Business, Arts, Music, Technology, Science, Foreign Languages, Language and Literature). They’ve been incorporated into our official programming
– 2 brochures, one for every two meetings, to compile the most important contents concerning the implementation of the project.
– 4 solved challenges worked out in the meetings.
– An Etwinning platform (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/29304/home)
– A website where all the results, experiences, videos… are posted. (https://towardsutopia.wixsite.com/utopia)
– A questionnaire/survey on measuring the students level of transversal competences, after participating in the project.
The impact has been significant:
– students have improved their XXI century skills and those immersed in family life abroad have developed their social, emotional, intellectual and language skills.
– teachers have become more flexible in teaching, adapting methodologies.
– families and the local community have experienced cultural differences and similarities
– the schools involved will continue working towards the utopia in teaching proposed in this project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 101538,15 Eur

Project Coordinator

IESO QUERCUS & Country: ES

Project Partners

• ISTITUTO DI ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE P.LEVI
• The Weald Community School & Sixth Form
• RSG Slingerbos|Levant