Values – the Essence of an Active Citizen Erasmus Project

Project Title

Values – the Essence of an Active Citizen

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Our project is focused on the adaptation of the European Commission’s Policy on the field of Early School Leaving (ESL) within participating schools. The main goal of the project was to deal with awareness of early school leaving on a European scale.
The project main coordinator is the school from Estonia, and the other six partners are from Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and Croatia. The partner schools from Turkey and Croatia are located in the countries’ capital cities, and the remaining partner schools come from smaller communities. This was a first-time participation in this type of projects for Croatian partners, the other partners had previous experience with Erasmus+. The project teams from Poland and Italy include eTwinning ambassadors.
The focus of the project was thinking about values as the basis of the individual personality as well as the society on the whole. Recognition and development of values through the exchange of ideas and experiences were viewed as the essential framework for a high-quality school, and life. This topic was symbolically pointed out in the activity Box of Values. Each partner made their own box of values, and the boxes were exchanged among the partners in each mobility. Each school added their own values in the boxes as they journeyed around Europe. Eventually, each school got their own box back, now containing the values of all seven partner schools.
Throughout the two years we tried to make a positive impact on the quality of work within the school curriculum through a great number of intertwined activities and
mobilities, with the aim to help in the development of a more positive attitude of students towards school. We improved the motivation of the teachers through staff
training events, allowing them to apply new knowledge in their work with students, which improved the quality of work in the school and also had a positive effect on the
student motivation.
The project had been structured in such a way that each partner had to host one mobility, and five teachers got the opportunity to take part in job shadowing events.
This assured an even distribution of responsibilities, as well as giving each partner equal opportunity to present themselves.
Students traveled to Portugal, Italy and Croatia. The topic of the student mobility to Portugal was storytelling. The students studied traditional folk stories and legends
and participated in a storytelling festival. The result of their hard work is the e-book “Keepers of the Values”. In Italy, where to students from Portugal and Croatia traveled, the topic was free time. The students participated in sports and art activities, which promoted the development of their social skills, of a positive attitude towards exercise, and of creativity in an informal, relaxed setting. In Croatia, the students attended an animation workshop. The result of their work is an animated film “Journey of the Legends”, which was based on the stories of the storytelling festival in Portugal.
To ensure the quality of the workshops, external local experts had to be engaged for the workshops in Portugal – a professional storyteller, and Croatia – a film studio.
In staff training mobilities, the teachers exchanged their experiences on the issues of early school leaving, reflected on the relationship of the school with the local
community with regard to the prevention of early school leaving and improving the quality of work (Norway), studied new ways of teaching in the segment of outdoor
learning, whether it be in a natural environment (Estonia) or an urban setting (Turkey, Croatia).
There were two transnational project meetings (Poland, Italy), and few video conferences.
Five eTwinning projects were opened for the purposes of this project, one as the main, “umbrella”, project and the other for specific activities.
Web page: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/5992.
Towards the end of the project, a documentary film “The Project Values” was created, incorporating video materials from all the partners, both teachers and students. The
film emphasizes the main topic of the project – prevention of ESL. We hope that this film might move other European schools to get involved in Erasmus+ projects. The
documentary’s viewpoint is personal to highlight one of the essential ideas of the project, namely the expression of personal thoughts and feelings, as part of the
process of individual development and as the basis of the improvement of school quality in the 21st century.
This project had a lasting effect on all of the institutions and individuals that participated in it. We found out about the differences and similarities of our school
systems, we experienced the cultural diversity of Europe, we developed social skills and the abilities of team work, we improved our English language skills, we learned
some simple expressions in the languages of the partners, we broadened our ICT skills and learned about Internet safety.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 194560 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kuusalu Keskkool & Country: EE

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas Cego do Maio
• Szkola Podstawowa w Pobiedziskach
• Sehit Sait Erturk Ortaokulu
• Kvåle School
• Istituto Comprensivo Laura Lanza Baronessa di Carini
• Osnovna skola Otona Ivekovica