Raising Aspirations for Social Inclusion Erasmus Project

Project Title

Raising Aspirations for Social Inclusion

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: Disabilities – special needs; Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

KA229 Erasmus+ School Exchange Partnership Project “Raising Aspirations for Social Inclusion” (RASI)
Participants
Applicant organisation Seinäjoen lyseo, Finland
Partner organisations Centrul Scolar de Educatie Incluziva Alba Iulia, Romania
O.D.P.F. Istituto Santachiara, Italy
Hietaniemi Friskoleförening, Sweden
Southend YMCA Community School, UK

Our project “Raising Aspirations for Social Inclusion” (RASI) was implemented in order to increase SEN students’ integration into society by improving the quality of the educational services they are provided.
The main objective was the exchange of good practices in teaching SEN students. What could the participating organisations learn from each other in order to improve their school culture? We developed, tested and evaluated innovative methods, activities and strategies to stimulate SEN students’ participation in both school and social life preventing their early school leaving and discrimination. We wanted to develop the quality of teaching and to improve students’ school motivation by increasing their self-esteem and helping them to experience success in a school environment where the focus often lies on academic skills.
The participation in this project was expected to bring long-lasting positive effects on each school and its culture. Teachers were encouraged to share ideas, compare their experiences transnationally and to integrate good practices and methods into daily activities.
Each partner school had formed a project team which included the principal, the coordinator and 2-3 teachers or experts in teaching SEN. These teams managed the activities.
Each school had chosen four specific areas/issues they wanted to improve in their organisations during the project. These issues were developed during the whole project, but there was certain time period to focus on each issue separately. They were introduced and discussed in six short-term joint staff training events during a three-year period (one extra year because of Covid-19). Every event was named covering the content of the chosen issues and was attended by chosen representatives from each partner school. We invited professionals from neighbouring schools to attent our trainings, to spread the ideas.
Short-term joint staff training events:
1. Finland 10/2018 Every student is everybody’s student
2. England 2/2019 Giving hope for children on edge, dropouts turned to be success stories
3. Sweden 4/2019 Whole municipality co-operates for children
4. Finland (for principals) 10/2019 Leading a school for everybody
5. Romania 2/2020 Practical methods to develop SEN-students’ education
6. Italy 4/2021 From school to society (online)

The RASI project home page (https://rasi-2018-2021.webnode.fi) shares information on the participating schools, their development issues, the project timetable and documentation of the experiments and activities in each school. At the end of the project we wrote a guideline booklet – both electronic and printed – as a concrete result of the project (https://simplebooklet.com/rasiebooklet).
The aim was that after the two-year (+ extra year because of Covid-19) project each participating school had developed operational models for its challenges described in the beginning and several innovative models learned from the partner schools in other countries. According to the aim, the common elaboration of practices inspired teachers to develop their work continually and kept up hope for the quality results.
Students benefited in multiple ways – solutions for the urgent challenges in each school were developed and, according to the Hawthorne effect, students became inspired to study when the teachers were inspired by the experimental activities. Thus, we keep up the hope that in spite of difficulties the future of the youngsters will be good and our project will promote equality in European schools and future society.
The results were disseminated in participating schools, in local network (other schools, authorities, health care, social care, police), in regional, national and international networks of each school.

Project Website

https://rasi-2018-2021.webnode.fi

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 78062,1 Eur

Project Coordinator

Seinäjoen lyseo & Country: FI

Project Partners

• O.D.P.F. ISTITUTO SANTACHIARA
• Centrul Scolar de Educatie Incluziva Alba Iulia
• Southend YMCA Community School
• Hietaniemi friskoleförening