The development of competencies through a project-based work Erasmus Project

Project Title

The development of competencies through a project-based work

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: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Six european nursery and elementary schools (Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Portugal and France) participated in this project aiming to put project based learning at the service of the acquisition by pupils of the key skills, as they are described in Europe 2020 strategy. In this context, teachers needed to become familiar with new methodologies allowing them to optimize their teaching.Therefore, teachers needed to acquire new skills in this particular field to use them in their teaching and then transmit them to newcomers joining the school staffs every year.
Project objectives have been achieved and are listed below:
Objective 1: Mutualization of innovative practices and implementation of new learning methodologies.
Objective 2: Development of basic skills such as:
-Development of the knowledge of the mother tongue particularly through comprehension of written texts and writing of reports and accounts.
-Speaking and writing skills in a foreign language by writing to pupils of partner schools in French and in English, and by recording documents then sent via the internet.
Objective 3: Development of transversal skills
intellectual: Pupils treat the information sent by the partner schools and must exercise their creativity to produce new documents.
méthodological: The pupils use digital technologies to create documents and communicate with partner schools.
Objective 4: Reinforcement of intercultural teaching. With the exponential increase of the mobility of persons from one country to another, we consider as essential to implicate pupils in project programs that will allow them to communicate with their european fellowmen.
Secondary Objectives: Improvement of the communication skills through cooperation between pupils.
Number/type/profile of participants
Our schools are situated in semi-urban zones except for the one in Lithuania that is in a rural zone. Between 100 and 600 children attend these schools. They are nursery and elementary schools except for the Lithuanian school whose pupils are aged 1-7. Children with special needs are included in classes and each school has a specialized teacher who teaches them in small groups for designated learning sessions. A certain homogeneity can be noted in terms of socio-cultural level and of number of pupils attending. Yet there are differences when it deals with digital equipment and with the number of people working in each school. All schools are fully provided with digital tools (video projectors, computers, tablets) except for the French school that has no computer room and will wait September 2019 to have all classrooms equipped with a video projector. All schools have a good number of people working with children except for the French school where there is only one teacher in each class, which make things complicated when teachers participate in mobilities and must be replaced.
Activities achieved:
Mutualized Projects: The secret life of Trees and Water, source of life, source of creation.
Free choice projets: School cooperative managed by the children, Manager of a day, School newsletter, Short movie festival, Sponsorship of endangered animals, Recycling, Coding, Calendars, Local History.
Connected Small projects: Waterday, Peace day, Books day, Tree day, Forest feast.
Miscellaneous other projects : Creation and choice of a logo for the Project, Creation of a mascot by each country, Gathering of local legends and selection of one of them in each country, making of puppets related to these legends, creation of a giant book of legends, Creation of a poster presenting a national or local tradition, Writing of a tale inspired from the chosen legend, Creation of an e-book gathering the six legends and six tales, Creation of an e-book gathering the different traditions, Creation of “Anna’s Book”, completed after each mobility, Making of a snakes and ladders game by each school and of another common one.
Communication: Creation of a website, Creation of a blog by each school, Creation of a Facebook page, of an E-twinning page and of a What’s app group.
All results emanate from a Project based pedagogy. Each final product results from activities simultaneously led by teachers. The impact on the school community was very strongChildren were very receptive and much more motivated because more active and giving sense to their school work. Teachers have shown more and more interested throughout the two years and have brought some changes to their way of teaching, creating new habits in their way to prepare their teachings.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 131713,3 Eur

Project Coordinator

CEIP CERVANTES & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas Gil Paes
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO ISA 20 BOLANO
• Radviliskio rajono Seduvos lopselis-darzelis
• Ecole Primaire St Sofronii Vrachanski
• Ogec Paul Ricoeur