Shaping Characters Erasmus Project

Project Title

Shaping Characters

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

With high levels of youth unemployment across Europe and an ever more competitive labour market, young people leaving education are expected not only to have the technical skills required by employers but also to be well rounded individuals with the attitude, character traits and employability skills necessary to enter the world of work effectively. Yet, employers consistently report that young people are not work ready and lack some of the core basic skills employers require.
Within this context Shaping Characters aimed to embed character education and employability into teaching practices, careers advice and youth work to ensure young people develop character resilience and attitudes that will empower them to take ownership of their own development and acquire character traits such as perseverance, resilience, confidence, optimism, drive, ambition, tolerance, respect, honesty, integrity, conscientiousness, curiosity and focus that will support their educational engagement and motivation.
The project brought together 12 partners from the UK, Sweden, Latvia and the Czech Republic. The four secondary schools, four local authorities, three youth organisations and university brought their experience of partnership working across different sectors to develop innovative approaches and resources to ensure effective character development of young people. The project’s long term aim was to raise educational attainment and participation of young people in formal and informal learning that will provide them with the skills and attributes they will need to enter the world of work.
During the project we held 6 Transnational meetings – a kick off and wrap up meeting and 4 themed events focusing in turn on ‘What is character education’, ‘Engaging employers in character education’, ‘Engaging young people in character education’ and ‘Engaging educators in character education.’ This enabled us to take an in depth look at each area, share our knowledge and experience and carry out research relevant to the theme within in each city. The key learning, best practice examples, research results and links for further information were summarised in a series of Factsheets available via the project website.
In February 2017 we took 10 young people from each city (between the ages of 13 and 17) for a week long programme of character building activities in Olomouc in the Czech Republic. The young people took part in a range of activities designed to develop the character traits identified above as well as a day creating and running a virtual company. At the end of the week they presented their experiences to their peers and the visiting project partners.
The project partners created an online toolkit containing 90 character building resources by the end of the project. (Items still being added with another 30 due to be available by the end of 2017). These are contained on the project website and can be used freely by any school, youth group or business looking for new ways to develop the character of the young people they work with. All project partners contributed to the toolkit and it contains a mix of lesson plans, activity ideas, questionnaires and presentations and information on how to run business mentoring programme.
Within each city a range of activities took place to test the resources being developed and to promote the project results and intellectual outputs among young people, teachers, local and regional authorities, employers, NGOs, youth groups and universities.
Through the Shaping Characters project, the benefits of embedding character education and employability into teaching, careers advice and youth work were promoted to 351 people involved in education and youth work who were also provided with a set of resources to enable them to do this in their own setting.
459 young people received character education sessions, improving their resilience, motivation and confidence and providing them with techniques and tools to support their educational attainment and future careers.
40 young people benefitted from a week of character education activities and a unique cultural experience. All of the young people involved reported and demonstrated a large rise in confidence, motivation and aspiration which will help them during their education and beyond.
Strong and lasting working relationships were forged between organisations who had not worked in partnership before in each city, bringing together businesses, education, careers advice and youth work. These relationships will continue beyond the project and should lead to future international and local projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 234889,51 Eur

Project Coordinator

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Rigas 64. vidusskola
• UNIVERZITA PALACKEHO V OLOMOUCI
• Young Folks LV
• Gävle kommun
• Masarykova zakladni skola a materska skola Velka Bystrice
• The Costello School
• Sofiedalskolan