Equipping School Staff and Parents with the Skills to Better Integrate Students with Visual Impairments in the Classroom Erasmus Project

Project Title

Equipping School Staff and Parents with the Skills to Better Integrate Students with Visual Impairments in the Classroom

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Access for disadvantaged; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Our project – Equipping School Staff with the Skills to Better Integrate Students with Visual Impairments in the Classroom (C.l.a.s.s.room) – will be a Strategic Partnership in the field of innovation, bringing together partners from 5 different countries. The lead applicant is the Association to Assist Visually Impaired Persons (Malta), and the partners are GLAFKA s.r.o. (Czech Republic); Euni Partners (Bulgaria); Learning Cities (Italy); Ankara Provincial Directorate for National Education (Turkey). Our project will take place over 31 months, from September 2016 until May 2019. The C.l.a.s.s.room project focuses on equipping school staff (teachers and LSAs) of primary and secondary schools with awareness on the challenges and needs of visually impaired students within the classroom as well as knowledge on the modern equipment that can be used by such students to keep up with their classmates, as well as knowledge on the teaching methods they can both use to make the classroom an inclusive educational space for students with visual impairments. In truth, the use of multi-sensory tools (such as videos or materials with different textures, for example) means an educational approach which is inclusive of students with a variety of educational difficulties, such as for example students with dyslexia.C.l.a.s.s.room also seeks to involve the parents of students with visual impairments so that they can be familiar with the training developed for teachers and LSAs, thus keeping them aware of the way their children are being taught and assisted at school, and to be able to assist their children to utilise modern equipment and technology to assist their children with homework and studying at home. This ensures that school children with visual impairments are supported by a holistic support system which stretches seamlessly from the school environment to the home environment. Our target groups are as follows:DIRECT PARTICIPANTS•Teachers and LSAs working with primary and secondary students with visual impairments•Parents of primary and secondary students with visual impairmentsINDIRECT PARTICIPANTS•Primary and secondary students with visual impairmentsWe shall be involving a total of 1125 persons from the above target groups – from all 5 participating countries. Therefore our project objectives are as follows: • Developing 2 innovative training courses that equip teachers, LSAs and parents to understand and address the needs of students with visual impairments. Teachers and LSAs are the school staff who are most central to the educational achievement of students, while parents are central to a project such as ours so that when doing homework or studying, students with visual impairments can be fully supported • Creating an online platform for exchange of best practices among teachers, LSAs and parents• Raising awareness among teachers, LSAs and parents of students with visual impairments of the technology available to improve their educational performance. •Researching the skill gaps of teachers and LSAs in working with students with visual impairments• Making lessons more inclusive to the needs of students with mixed abilities and making lessons more interactive – which benefits all students, not only those with visual impairmentsTo develop the above intellectual outputs we shall be: •Carrying out research, including focus groups with all in/direct participants mentioned above, stakeholders in the fields of education & disability in each country and focus groups to discuss the needs and skill gaps present in this sector;•Developing the intellectual outputs based on this research;•Piloting of both training courses developed and evaluation based on participants’ feedback;•Revision of training course content and delivery of training to 30 parents, 30 teachers and 30 LSAs in each country;•Promotion of intellectual outputs via Internet as well as multiplier events in each participating country. In a nutshell, the project impact envisaged is: •skill enhancement of teachers and LSAs in integrating and educating primary and secondary visually impaired students•improved awareness among parents and education staff & decision-makers of the technology and other tools available that can improve the educational attainment of visually impaired students•holistic support structure that enables visually impaired students to participate effectively in the classroom Long-term benefits: Networking and capacity-building of all project partners and stakeholders involved, from 5 different countries. This will lead to further projects on the topics of education and inclusion of disabled persons as well as cooperation among education stakeholders in the countries participating in the project. Students with visual impairments will be supported in participating actively in the classroom and improving their educational attainment – which improves their employment prospects in future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 123041,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

Association to Assist Visually Impaired Persons & Country: MT

Project Partners

• ANKARA MILLI EGITIM MUDURLUGU
• GLAFKA s.r.o.
• ASSOCIATION LEARNING CITIES
• SDRUZHENIE YUNI PARTNERS