L.I.F.E. Love! Improve! Feel! Educate! Erasmus Project

Project Title

L.I.F.E. Love! Improve! Feel! Educate!

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: Disabilities – special needs; Social dialogue; Early childhood education and care

Project Summary

The “L.I.V.E. – Love! Improve! Feel! Educate!” project involves 6 organizations from 5 countries (Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Norway and Slovenia). The participating organizations are kindergartens and schools, which shall mutually exchange good practices and knowledge, as well as design modern educational processes in the field of social and emotional learning (SEL).
European education systems highly neglect the role of SEL (OECD, 2010) in the contexts of curricular planning, learning opportunities and professional development of teachers. The project shall provide positive climate in partnering organizations, raise the level of emotional literacy of EU citizens and thus contribute to the development of EU strategic goals.
Awareness of the importance of emotional and social literacy in the European area has recently also been confirmed by the participants of the UN Conference at the European Council. On this occasion, educational priorities in the field of emotional literacy have also been identified.
By upgrading the educational contents, children’s learning performance shall improve and thus higher level of employability and social inclusion will be reached. This shall result in reducing social security expenditure and raising the economic competitiveness of EU countries. Emotionally literate individuals also bear a lower risk of developing psychiatric illness, which further contributes to lower budget spending on health care services.
The aim of the project is to improve emotional and social competences in the field of self-awareness, self-management of one’s emotions, eg. through higher level of empathy, social awareness, interpersonal skills, social inclusion and tolerance towards vulnerable social groups across all the project partner countries. Active EU citizenship shall be promoted by learning about partner countries. At the same time cultural and linguistic competences of children will improve.

Project goals across stakeholder groups

Children:
– Better understanding of oneself, one’s emotions, developing self-esteem,
– Self-management of one’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors,
– Familiarization with simple stress management techniques,
– Raising the level of social awareness and of empathetic response to the needs of peers,
– Developing communication and promoting cooperation among peers,
– Mastering a of interpersonal skills on a higher level,
– Accepting and developing tolerance for cultural and diversity.

Employees:
– Higher level of empathy towards vulnerable social groups,
– Use of efficient communication strategies,
– Use of different relaxation techniques to overcome stress,
– More effective emotional response in conflict situations,
– Changed attitude towards oneself, other people, work and one’s own performance requirements,
– Integrating the contents of SEL into annual education plans,
– Taking responsibility for good relations between employees.

Parents:
– Gaining knowledge of meaning, role and importance of SEL for healthy development of a child and the family as a whole,
– Developing tolerance towards vulnerable social groups,
– Wider social network for families from vulnerable social groups,
– More social networking outside (pre)school environment,
– Increased level of participation in workshops, trainings and other activities within the educational organization.

The organization:
– Developing an encouraging and positive organizational climate,
– More tolerance among all the employees, less sick leave due to psychosocial issues,
– More visitors to events organized by institutions.

Local community:
– More visitors to events organized by schools,
– Emphasis on the importance of SEL,
– Numerous project-related exhibitions.

Children aged 3 to 15 will be involved in the project. Each partner organization shall aspire to deliver SEL content across different areas of expertise and everyday life. Good practices developed and the experience gained shall be implemented in the educational processes by all the participating organizations.
The project focuses on engaging participants who lack opportunities for inclusion. In all partner organizations, the SEL shall provide the deprivileged children and their families with opportunities of active participation throughout the learning process. The number of children benefiting from the project in total amounts to over 2000.
The interim and final results will be presented to the general population and professionals in all the EU partner countries. This will be accomplished by using the e-twinning platform and setting up a blog. All activities will also regularly be reported on by the means of websites, 7 e-magazines will be issued, and e-books presenting good practices will be published. Through international cooperation, employee cooperation networks will be established. This will provide for the exchange of good practices and monitoring of their implementation even after the project has been completed.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 98168 Eur

Project Coordinator

VRTEC PEDENJPED & Country: SI

Project Partners

• Vrtec Litija
• Vedruna Escorial Vic
• Nuova Direzione Didattica Vasto
• Skårungen barnehage
• Zakladni skola a Materska skola Opava – Male Hostice, prispevkova organizace