Encountering across Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Encountering across 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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

“Encountering across Europe” is a partnership among three schools: one is the Italian applicant institution, “Scuola Maria Ausiliatrice” of Rome, and 2 Institutes from England, St. Richard’s Primary School and St. Edmund’s Secondary School. The time of the action has been 24 months. The applicant Italian school led the organization for managing the partnership. The partnership involved two organizations from the same country because of the need to emphasize the partnership consisting of an exchange of best pactices among an Italian school, offering verticalized education from the Childcare to the last year of Secondary Education, and the two English partners that cover only together the same complete curriculum of the Italian partner. The partnership is composed in order to ensure a vertical comparison and exchange among European educational integrated systems. The choice of the partners has also responded to the need of cooperating with international school sharing the same vision and mission, as is resulting for cooperatio, in the last years, of the two partners with “ENSO GROUP”, the consulting organization cooperating with the Italian applicant for a granted KA1 project in the last year. The English partners found in the partnership an opportunity to start the building of an effective European collaboration between their pupils and other European students, despite of the starting of the Brexit process.
The leading Italian school has totally 800 pupils, and is liking to improve her internationalizing process especially characterized by the Cambridge IGCSE curricula. The organization’s didactic is consisting, in a way corssing through the school years, of the following methodologies: cooperative learning, flipped learning, Cambridge IGCSE curricula. In the last years the school has been granted as an Erasmus Plus KA 101 beneficiary, for some projects focused on the predicted teaching-learning methodologies. The realized action is the leading school’s first KA2 partnership: the overall achieved goal is developing a starting up exchange among schools, building a continuous partnership between the partners along the time, beyond the Erasmus+ grant. A reason of strengthness of the action is founded on closer sharing of the visions and the missions among the partners, oriented to provide pupils with real effective European citizenship skills and to make them openminded responsible adults in the future.
The project has realized the European priorities which was envisaged to. The project has also improved the staff competences about softskills’ teaching and about innovative educational approaches, especially those involving the substantial European EQF competences.
The partnership action has been be developed as described in the following plan:

SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER 2018: starting preparation. Leading organization: the applicant school, Maria Ausiliatrice of Rome, supported by the project team. Learning Teaching Training Activity in England. Focus: the learning environment. Start of the dissemination activity.
FEBRUARY 2019: Learning Teaching Training Activity in Italy. Focus: innovative approaches to the school education, cooperative learning, flipped learning, IGCSE teaching in the Italian school.
MARCH 2019 – SEPTEMBER 2019: the action went on at the local level. Partner schools were acting the acquired methodologies. Communication among partners has been provided by the use of ETWINNING.
OCTOBER – NOVEMBER 2019: pupils’ preparation to LTTA mobilities: communication via Etwinning , minimum 10 hours preparative at school, parents’ information. Learning Teaching Training Activity of the Italian pupils in England. Focus: learning environment, exchange of best practices.
FEBRUARY 2020: Envisaged Learning Teaching Training Activity of the English pupils in Italy Due to COVID 19 force majeure the mobility has been deleted. Anyway pupils realized the exchange via Etwinning and other online communication platforms.
MARCH-AUGUST 2020: dissemination and project conclusion only developing online activities.

Realized or started long term benefits of the action for the partner schools: more inclusive teachingi in order to empower the success’ leverage of the disadvantaged students, more skill and competence centred learning activities according the EQF frame, European cooperation acquired as a usual perspective of the school education, the effectiveness of the staff in orienting pupils towards European activities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 61440,34 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTITUTO GESU’ NAZARENO DELLE SALESIANE DI DON BOSCO – SCUOLA MARIA AUSILIATRICE & Country: IT

Project Partners

• St Edmund’s Catholic School
• St. Richard’s Catholic Primary School