Feed4Saving Erasmus Project

Project Title

Feed4Saving

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

“Feed4Saving” was a strategic partnership developed by eights schools from Europe and implemented in the period 2016-2018, with the financial support of the European Commission, through the programme Erasmus+, Key Action 2. The project emerged from the need to offer schools a range of concrete tools to help them prevent or intervene in cases of early school leaving, which is a real problem of the education system nowadays, identified as such even by the European Union in the ET 2020. Thus, the objectives of the partnership referred to the causes of the early school leaving phenomenon and the project aimed to:
– improve students’ school performance by equipping them with practical skills in the fields of languages (communication), science, art and cooking
– enhance students’ engagement and motivation to attend school by implementing effective self-awareness and evaluation tools
– reduce the degree of absenteeism with at least 5% among the students of the partner schools
– improve teachers’ skills when dealing with students at risk of early school drop-out, by equipping them with innovative methodology meant to boost students’ motivation and involvement.

The target group of the project was formed of a number of about 400 secondary school students, aged 13-19, belonging to the eight European schools, from countries affected by the phenomenon of school drop-out – Romania, Italy (2 schools), Portugal, Spain, France, Turkey and Greece. Six partner schools (Romania, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey) were vocational, training students in the field of tourism, agriculture and/or food services, while the Spanish school was vocational in the field of Computer sciences and the Portuguese school offered academic training. Despite this, all of them were dealing with the problem of early school leaving, implementing different strategies or even concrete programmes funded by the local community (eg. Spain).

The project activities were designed in such a way so as to involve students in their own learning process while, at the same time, motivating them to attend school. The project started with a survey, it continued with the implementation of workshops that boosted students’ motivation and also with practical activities within four laboratories on Language (English), Maths, Art and Cooking. In fact, all the activities were organized around the simple activity of cooking and the laboratories offered information and working methods that supported this main activity. The methods used in the project were the non-formal ones (workshops, peer-to-peer, “The human library”, “World cafe” etc.) and the laboratories where, by using the theoretical knowledge, students were able to build practical skills.

There were two results developed by the partnership – a collection of resources, entitled suggestively “Boost your class!’, meant to help increase students’ motivation and a pedagogical kit “Teaching through Laboratories” offering ready-made lesson plans, materials and good practice examples in four modules – Language lab, Maths Lab, Artistic Lab and Cooking lab.

By getting involved in this project, the students understood how important schooling is, they improved greatly their motivation for attending classes (the number of absences decreased by 10,51%, thus doubling the proposed goal), due to the fact that new methods were employed by teachers and also due to students’ direct involvement in their own learning process. Besides these, the valuable exchange of good practices and the development of new teaching methods and materials allowed teachers to make their lessons more attractive, contributing in this way to students’ success in their school life.

The long-term benefits refer to integrating the results in the curriculum of the participating schools and also to their distribution to other interested schools and stakeholders (among whom NGOs, local enterprises – restaurants, catering units, school inspectorates). The partner schools aim to develop new activities and projects in the future based on the results generated by this partnership, which can take our ideas further, to a new level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 129985 Eur

Project Coordinator

COLEGIUL ECONOMIC “PINTEA VITEAZUL” & Country: RO

Project Partners

• ISIS Leopoldo II di Lorena
• Lycée des Métiers Jules Le Cesne
• KARTAL SEHIT SALIH ALISKAN MESLEKI VE TEKNIK ANADOLU LISESI
• IPSAR G. MATTEOTTI PISA
• Escola Secundária com 3º Ciclo D. Dinis
• IES LA SENIA
• Epal Karlovasou