Autistic students connect. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Autistic students connect.

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Disabilities – special needs; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The pupils of these three schools are young people with autism. With this project we want to train these pupils in social and communicative skills. By bringing these young people together (with their teachers) we are convinced that this will improve their motivation and social skills. Working intensively with like-minded people not only gives these students the opportunity to discover that they are not alone, but also to look at ‘their’ world from a different perspective. This experience makes it possible for the students to discover, develop and broaden their possibilities and competences in an international, new context but still within the safe limits of their known autism world. By starting from a common base, these participating schools can put their expertise together and share it with each other. Today, there is a lot of emphasis in society on the development of soft skills and communication. It is precisely this that is often lacking in our target audience, so we want to offer them this opportunity to become more world citizens who can communicate interculturally and develop collaborative skills.
The Flemish school De Passer is good at providing lifelike experiences, but less so in the structured and monitored maintenance of care data, while at the partner school Helder this is just the other way around. And where the school in Flanders and the Dutch school Matrix Lyceum are good at integration in mainstream education and Helder less, De Passer and Helder have more common ground within their vision.
This socially relevant project will yield wonderful results for the various partners as well as any external partners. By exchanging their good practices, the three schools are aiming for even more adapted care and a stronger learning environment, which will benefit the pupils even more. This will make our pupils self-reliant and independent youngsters with a higher learning and participation chance. In doing so, we create a lower drop-out rate when starting higher studies and a lifelong learning attitude with confidence in their talents and sufficient resilience in case of setbacks.
In this way, these students remain triggered to continue learning and to focus on their social inclusion. By learning and seeing from each other across borders, by discovering how others deal with similar situations, by discovering that there are others in their situation – they are not isolated, these young people push huge barriers for themselves. This has a huge impact on their self-image, resulting in higher learning and participation opportunities.
By actively involving all pupils in this project and not excluding anyone because of social, cultural, behavioural or any other background, we give a clear signal to these young people that everyone matters and that they too can make a difference in this world. They are one by one important links in our society and it is important for the development of their mental and emotional health that they are aware of this. By making them more resistant through this experience, they have a greater chance of social inclusion later in life.
From each school 20 (out of one 15) pupils and 4 (out of one 3) teachers actively participate in the mobility. Teachers focus mainly on the preparation of the pupil exchange and the exchange of good practices. Pupils will follow peer lessons and school activities, visit world citizenship sites, visit companies and/or other knowledge institutions, and practice their collaboration and communication skills through games and other activities.
Within this project, there is a strong focus on the use of eTwinning. This platform forms the basis of all communication before during and after the project. In the interest of all partners, all teachers are formed by an eTwinning ambassador.

These schools have a shared knowledge about autism, each with their own vision and approach. By bringing together their visions, approach and experiences, good practices, the aim is to create a highly substantiated expertise that can be further developed within Europe. Countries that also have a strong position within inclusive education such as vb. Finland, Spain, Malta, Romania or Portugal, … will be involved in the next phase of new Erasmus+ dossiers. In this way, the expertise and support base will be further developed. The greater the support, the greater the outcome.
The current partners are quite unique within their school operation and with their already built up expertise they have a solid basis to be able to enter into future partnerships. In the future, the results of their project may give a reason to build on this and to enter into a new partnership with another European country and another partner with the necessary know-how.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 52924 Eur

Project Coordinator

GO! school voor buitengewoon secundair onderwijs De Passer & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Helder.havo/vwo
• Matrix Lyceum