Breaking the Vicious Cycle Erasmus Project

Project Title

Breaking the Vicious Cycle

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The problem that we will target in our project is the lack of skills and competences of pupils on how to integrate in society. These are pupils who have been exposed to various situations which hinder their learning process.

In view of this, the target group of this project will be young people who lack basic skills and competences on how to integrate in society and who come from difficult backgrounds. In fact both the German and Portuguese schools cater for such pupils (among others) whereas the Maltese school targets solely pupils with such problems.

The causes for our problem is a direct result of a number of factors such as low social class environments and broken families.

On the other hand, the main effect of the mentioned problem is a challenging behaviour which these pupils develop by time.

It is evident that there is a vicious cycle between the causes – the problem – and the effects.

In order to tackle the mentioned problem, this project will involve 3 short-term exchanges of groups of pupils.

This project will involve pupils from 3 different schools.

Three groups of pupils will each participate in a short-term exchange which will be held in one of the countries of the participating schools.

Each group will consist of different pupils. Hence each pupil will participate in only 1 exchange.

Groups 1 will be made up of 16 pupils (4 from Malta, 6 from Portugal and 6 from Germany) whereas groups 2 and 3 will be made up of 18 participants (6 from each involved school).

The objectives of this project will be the following:

1) To provide 52 pupils with the opportunity to meet with other young people who have a different culture;
2) To assist 52 pupils to acquire knowledge that will help them improve their life skills;
3) To help 52 pupil to better understand the value of respect; and
4) To develop a strong relationship between 3 European schools.

Since the pupils for each exchange will be different individuals, the content of the 3 exchanges will be relatively the same.

For each mobility, we will implement the below activities:

Day 1
– Introductory talk by the teachers;
– Ice-breaking games;
– Discussion about the term ‘community’;
– Cultural visit.

Day 2
– Interactive session with a social worker about the topic of respect to self, others (including authorities and the law);
– Treasure hunt;
– Workshops whereby participants will be presented with different situations and possible reactions to them and the consequence of each reaction. The pupils will have to identify the reactions that are socially acceptable and provide reasons for their answers;
– Evaluation session.

Day 3
– Workshops (and then group discussion) in which the participants will discuss the cultural differences of their countries;
– Cultural visit to a historical site;
– Discussion about minorities in society and how these should be treated as human beings;
– Evaluation session.

Day 4
– Interactive session with career adviser on good employability skills;
– Practical session whereby the participants will be divided into smaller groups and they will join 1 of the workshops provided by the hosting school that focus on a particular trade – such as wood works.
– Final evaluation session.

Methodology:

– Introductory talk;
– Ice-breaking activities;
– Discussions;
– Cultural visits;
– Outdoor activity (treasure hunt);
– Interactive sessions;
– Workshops;
– Practical session;
– Evaluation sessions.

The results of this project are the below:

– 52 pupils will (a) meet with students from 2 other countries; (b) improve their life skills; and (c) better understand the value of respect;

– 52 pupils will be more equipped to integrate in society and this will result in less dependency on same society. Also, the long term result of this will be less social problems as the participants will be encouraged to be law abiding citizens; and

– 3 schools will establish a strong relationship.

Participation in this activity will benefit the involved participants because:

1) They will broaden their minds as they will meet people from different countries who have a different culture;
2) They will realise that there is a bigger world out there which is full of opportunities;
3) They continue to develop their knowledge about how they should behave in society;
4) They will improve their employability skills; and
5) They will improve their language skills.

The potential long-term benefits for the involved schools may be the below:
– They will be able to better structure the programmes which they develop for their pupils; and
– They will have a good experience as to what is involved in the preparation and implementation phase of a project.

The potential long-term benefits for the involved pupils may be the below:
– They will become more interested in education and this can have a very positive impact on their future; and
– They will be able to better control their behaviour and thus better integrate in society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 67364 Eur

Project Coordinator

Education Hub Msida & Country: MT

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas Nuno de Santa Maria
• Johann-Amos-Comenius-Schule integrierte Gesamtschule