Education for the future: Leadership and agency development for responsive schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Education for the future: Leadership and agency development for responsive schools

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Educational systems in Europe face many challenges. As schools are the focal points in educational systems, it is essential that they develop capacity and ownership in finding sustainable answers to these challenges. This requires responsive and adaptive schools cultures in which new developments in society can be incorporated in the content and design of curricula, in the work of teachers and in the learning of students. To create adaptive and responsive schools, the agency and leadership of both teachers and school leaders is essential.

In this project the agency and leadership of teachers was be strengthened through a post-initial Master’s level joint module for teachers and school leaders that can be integrated in different post-initial Master’s level programmes. This post-initial Master’s level module is be developed by the four partner institutions and embedded within Master’s programmes and in-service activities of three universities in three different countries. The development of the programme made use of a design based approach in which three test runs were used to develop, adapt and re-adapt the programme design and materials. Through this approach the project did not only lead to a programme design and course materials that can be shared with other higher education institutions, but also to 216 teachers and school leaders from Estonia, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and Switzerland who developed their leadership and agency by participating in the programme and who now can be initiators change within their schools by engaging colleagues.

The engagement of 216 teachers and school leaders also created the opportunity to collect portraits/vignettes of school in the participating countries regarding the way and the extent in which the culture and structure within these schools supported or hindered adaptivity or responsiveness. The COVID19 lockdown in the spring of 2020 created an unique opportunity to see and compare how schools in different contexts and settings dealt with a similar challenge that required an rigorous adaptation of their daily routines. Through portraits from 24 schools, a clearer understanding was developed of the impact of the COVID19 lockdown on schools and the responsiveness of schools in dealing with this crisis. The analysis shows mechanisms and conditions for adaptive and responsive school cultures and how schools can be supported in this.

The project started in September 2017 and ended in August 2020. Project partners were the Schulamt (Office of Education) Liechtenstein, Tallinn University (TLÜ) in Estonia, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) in the Netherlands and the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PHZH) in Switzerland. The outcomes of the project can be found at https://www.tlu.ee/en/e4f.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 347922,87 Eur

Project Coordinator

REGIERUNG DES FURSTENTUMS LIECHTENSTEIN & Country: LI

Project Partners

• Tallinna Ülikool
• STICHTING HOGESCHOOL VAN AMSTERDAM
• Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich