Hey! Teachers, don’t leave the kids alone Erasmus Project

Project Title

Hey! Teachers, don’t leave the kids alone

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: Pedagogy and didactics; Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The HEY project stems from the need to increase the adequacy of the training approaches used by primary school teachers in relation to the main trends of social change in progress. These trends apply to: • Family changes and the arrival of new type of families, more complex and with more members;• Evolution of educational and existential styles;• Diversification of cultural context;• Extension of the gap between rich and poor people and the crisis of middle class;• New learning approaches and educational disadvantage.”Inequalities persist in European education systems. Pupils from poor socio-economic backgrounds perform worse at school than their peers in all EU countries. Children from immigrant backgrounds, the disabled, and Roma children are among the most vulnerable groups affected. At the same time, there are large differences between countries in the extent to which family background influences learning outcomes”. (Source: EU Commission)In this context, the school is one of the main pillar against the process of social molecularization but, in order to act efficiently, must be able to engage with different interlocutors than those of the past and different from each other for many reasons: needs, expectations, values, training models.The project is based on the idea to create specific training tools to enable teachers to engage directly, at least potentially, with each student (especially with those at risks of exclusion for social or economic reasons, or for cognitive or physical disabilities) and each family in an individual and group way, to reconnect this relationship into networks of exchange and social cohesion to take them away to their solitude and/or prevent the risk that they establish new types of solitude in their scholastic experience. This dual ability to welcome/receive, through enhancing practices of individualization and the connection of individual differences, is the essential requirement of every inclusive school, able to reflect the evolution of the needs traditionally attributed to the deficit area. The aim of the project is to empower teachers engaged in children education (and, consequently, the students together with their families) in practical skills that allows them to handle daily challenges more effectively and enhance their ability of inclusion and their level of social wellbeing in a sustainable way. An added value was the creation of a “Protocol” containing the procedures, methodologies, training tools and physical / logistical aspects of the “inclusive learning environments”, which were used as a guide for the validation and certification of these competences, in order to create a scheme for the validation of skills (developed according to the EQF) in the field of social inclusion in school education. The project was developed by a partnership of 6 organizations (2 Universities, a training institution with a focus on disabilities, a primary school, and a training institution) from Italy, Lithuania, Cyprus, Poland and Slovenia. The results obtained are: 1) raising awareness on the importance of inclusion, social well-being and the relationship between families and schools in training courses; 2) Improved ability of teachers to engage directly with each student and each family in an individual and group manner (in order to reconnect this relationship in networks of exchange and social cohesion environments to take them away from their loneliness and to prevent the risk of establishing new types of loneliness in their school experience). 3) The inclusive skills provided by the use of the new training tools produced during the project were transferred to 24 primary school teachers (2 for partners + 12 Italians, during a training event held in Bologna. Considering a so-called “cascade model” effect, these teachers have transferred to other colleagues these skills, for a total of 120 teachers involved) providing training tools to ensure a social environment and optimal inclusive learning; 4) A teacher’s manual was created, containing the modules proposed for a more inclusive didactics and for a more inclusive school model easily transferable. 5) An interactive online tool, addressed to childre, was created, with the aim of facilitating the use of project results. The codification and the consequent certification of the competences proposed in the context of inclusive education, has stimulated the interest of teachers who have requested in great numbers information on how to obtain such certification, based on the products and outputs of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 228619 Eur

Project Coordinator

I.E.R.F.O.P. ONLUS & Country: IT

Project Partners

• 26th PRIMARY SCHOOL PANAYIAS TRICHEROUSA
• ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
• UNIWERSYTET LODZKI
• RAZVOJNO IZOBRAZEVALNI CENTER NOVOMESTO
• VILNIAUS KOLEGIJA