A Healthy Mind for a Modern World Erasmus Project

Project Title

A Healthy Mind for a Modern World

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: Health and wellbeing; Creativity and culture; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

In the current education climate, it is well recognized that certain issues are prevalent across European schools namely: the difficulties of ensuring social cohesion between different groups of pupils from different ethnic or social backgrounds; the growing gap between vulnerable pupils such as those from economically deprived backgrounds or from those from vulnerable ethnic groups and their peers and the growing concerns about the emotional health and wellbeing of pupils throughout the education system. A Healthy Mind For A Modern World brings together current thinking about teaching pedagogies from different European schools as a way to tackle these issues in a holistic way. The project aims to combine best practice from Swedish schools in relation to how Forest school can be used to improve emotional wellbeing as well as best practice from Cornish schools in how critical thinking can support pupils in developing their own sense of self. This will be compared to how schools in Slovenia use music and dance to integrate pupils from disparate social and ethnic backgrounds.

The aims are to share these best practices across the partner schools from Sweden, Slovenia, and UK. 3 members of staff from each partner school will observe best practice in their partner school. From these visits, educational activities will be organised in the partner schools that will use elements from Forest school, critical thinking as well as the arts to deal with issues of social cohesion and academic attainment. From this initial meetings, the benefits will be felt by the pupils across all the partner schools – namely some 2,000 students in total.

The longer term benefits will be that these pedagogies will become more widely known not only in the partner schools but in the schools in the local area. It is hoped that the materials produced by the project – will be disseminated as a book, distributed to local schools in Cornwall and to partner schools in Europe. An online PDF version of the final booklet will be made available through the school’s website to reach a wider audience and increase the final impact of the project – helping to inspire all teachers and teaching staff on how they can improve the outcomes for their pupils through the use of Forest schools and critical thinking.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 38800 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lewannick Primary School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Osnovna sola Milana Sustarsica
• Krokslättsskolan
• Harrowbarrow School