ANIMAL INTEGRATION IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME Erasmus Project

Project Title

ANIMAL INTEGRATION IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME

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: Disabilities – special needs; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

SWOT analysis of learning achievements of pupils with special needs and the research carried out by the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE) have shown that the learning outcomes of pupils with special needs are very low and that there is a decreasing number of learners with special educational needs enrolled in higher levels of education.

The aim of the project was to find an effective way which would raise the learning outcomes of special need students and analysis done by the Slovenian coordinator, Ljudska univerza Rogaška Slatina, found significant benefits of using animals in the educational process, due to animal’s beneficial effects on people during the learning process, especially with people with special needs. Further researches showed that integration of animals into schools is still very rare or not used at all, especially not on regular basis. Therefore, the main goal of the project was set: to develop a guideline about integration of animals into educational programme and classes on regular basis for teachers and other interested individuals, who would like to make learning more interesting for their students or their children. At the same time, during the project teachers were trained in the field of conducting useful lessons with animals and transfer their knowledge, gained in the project, among their colleagues. Project also involved activities for children, in order to educate them about animals and get them familiar with various animals. Although the focus was on children with special needs, the project involved also children who visit regular schools and do not have any special disabilities, because there was a big interest in these kind of activities.

In general, the objectives of the project were:

– to develop an innovative approach for teachers and provide a more attractive education which was achieved by development of a guideline for teachers about animal integration in school curriculum; to create new or improved practices to cater for the needs of disadvantaged groups; to train the members of the teaching staff how to use animals in their curriculum and make them more skilled and prepared to integrate good practices and new methods into their daily activities; participating schools were able to create a link and develop cooperation among local organizations, dealing with activities with animals, which has opened synergies with organisations active in different fields; the members of teaching staff were strengthening their profiles of the teaching professions and were able to deliver high quality teaching and adopt new methods and tools; another objective was to support schools, teacher and pupils with special needs in the field of early school leaving and the beneficial effects of animal integration in the educational programme have shown improvement in the learning achievements of involved students, which will help raise the educational level of pupils with special needs. The parents were also invited to various project activities to achieve better collaboration among schools and parents. The teachers and others involved in the project have also benefit from the linguistic and cultural diversity. This project was also a great opportunity for organizations from different countries to compare and exchange good practices and educational systems, especially in the field of special need education.

The project involved ten organizations from 8 different countries. The coordinator was a Slovenian adult educational centre and partners were 4 educational organizations for special need students from Greece, Croatia, Slovenia and Turkey, 4 primary schools with regular programmes but increasing number of special need students from Slovenia, Hungary, Poland and Romania and an organization from Ireland, which deals with education and trainings in the field of animals.

During the project various activities were carried out. One group of activities were intended for teachers and helped them learn about ways to integrate animals into educational programme, how to try out various activities with animals in classrooms and to give feedbacks and analysis which were needed for the final intellectual output of the project – guideline for animal integration in the educational programme. The other group of activities were developed for children to connect them with animals better, see their responses during interactions with certain animals and teach them about the value of animals. During the project various evaluations were made by teachers involved and internal project teams. They showed severe increase in motivation, interest and success in learning with most of the children involved in activities with animals. Therefore, most of the schools involved started buying their own animals or involve animals from school staff members into their regular school activities, which has ensured a continuation of activities with animals after the project finishes.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 214953,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

LJUDSKA UNIVERZA, ZAVOD ZA IZOBRAZEVANJE IN KULTURO, ROGASKA SLATINA & Country: SI

Project Partners

• VIZ III. OSNOVNA SOLA ROGASKA SLATINA
• Erdligeti Altalanos Iskola
• Ozel Denizli Ayyildiz Ozel Egitim ve Rehabilitasyon Merkezi
• OSNOVNA SKOLA JOSIPA MATOSA
• Szkola Podstawowa nr 2 im. Romualda Traugutta
• JVIZ I. OS Rogaska Slatina
• 1st Special Nursery School of Patras