Autistic child in a mainstream class: resources for school staff to promote fully inclusive learning process. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Autistic child in a mainstream class: resources for school staff to promote fully inclusive learning process.

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: Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

BACKGROUND: Teachers and other school staff are facing challenges in working with autistic children on everyday basis. Sometimes educators experience difficulties in finding the best methodologies and techniques working with autistic children and integrating them in mainstream classrooms. This project was aimed for teachers and other school staff to acquire new knowledge and skills in order to be able to work with autistic and mainstream children in a way that is advantageous for both of these groups. It wasn’t only help for teachers and other school based specialists to improve learning environment but it also shoved how to include autistic children in mainstream collective more effectively.
AIM: The aim of this project was to ensure teachers and school staff (assistants, speech therapists, social educator, special educator and others that are in any way involved in working with autistic children) with information, techniques, methods and practical skills in order to be able to include autistic children in mainstream classes the best way possible for them. Also to be able to gain from school environment not only curriculum but also cooperation skills, problem solving skills and to increase their communicative abilities. This project wasn’t only a great support for school staff but also a contribution in autistic children education. As different countries use wide variety of methods and techniques in work with autistic children in mainstream classes it was crucial to look at this matter in a broader way than just one country – Latvia. The aim was to include at least five countries and exchange teachers and staff experiences in between these countries. At the end of the project we had a conference in Latvia, where many teachers from mainstream schools who face challenges of including autistic children in mainstream classes were provided with new resources to improve their teaching quality and overall knowledge of autism from an international experience based perspective.
PARTICIPANTS: It was planned to include at least five partners in this project from different countries Iceland, United Kingdom, Estonia, Slovakia and Latvia. Selection process of partners was based on their experience in the field of including autistic children in mainstream classes. Only preschools and primary schools which had previous experience and which were including autistic children in mainstream classes at the moment of applying to the project were selected. Previous cooperation partners were also addressed to ask them if they would like to take part in this project.
ACTIVITIES: All partners were asked to share their knowledge and practical skills in working with autistic children in mainstream classes through organizing short term joint staff training activities/master classes in their countries as well as participating in short term joint staff training events and master classes organized by partner organizations. Regularly project meetings were held to plan coming up training activities, develop work sheets, questionnaires and other relevant documents for the project.
RESULTS AND IMPACT: The main outcome of this project was increased knowledge of school staff, especially of teachers who work with autistic children. The knowledge includes different working techniques, methods and skills in order to improve autistic children inclusion process in mainstream schools. Results are available for society on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, where all information from seminars, master classes and every day project work is published. And the main outcome was a resource pack for educators in working with autistic children.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 104075 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vaivaru pamatskola & Country: LV

Project Partners

• Caedraw Primary School
• Leikskolinn Solborg
• Zakladna skola s MS
• Nurme kool