Present for your Future Erasmus Project

Project Title

Present for your Future

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: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Inclusion – equity; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

Present for Your Future is a strategic partnership project that came on the need to prevent / reduce absenteeism in the 3 participating schools. All schools involved work with children with educational difficulties and faced in the last years the problem of school absenteeism. In C. Paunescu school students come often from conflictual backgrounds or nomadic families, some of them being born in various european cities, in sporadic contact with several european cultures. They experience difficulties of attending school and being accepted it in and outside school. This problem can be also found in the partener schools: Newark School Malta and Zihni Üstün Ortaokulu School Turkey. Our common goal was to provide teachers with tools to reduce absenteeism. The aim of PRESENT FOR YOUR FUTURE was to find solutions to raise children inclusion and school attendance to give them a chance to succes. We did identify models of intervention through the exchange of experience and shared successful attempts implemented in our schools.
The project was aimed at professional development of 36 teachers (12 teachers from each school) in order to prevent school absenteeism.
The OBJECTIVES were:
– to increase teachers’ competence to approach absenteeism for children from ethnic and cultural diversity groups
– to transfer good practices applyed in other schools and adapt/inovate them for our schools
– to increase the attractiveness of the educational process for pupils in all partner schools
– to extend the teachers’ knowledge regarding the school motivation of children with special needs
– to develop a Good practice guide that includes measures to combat absenteeism
– to be a pioneer among schools in the region in developing a coherent model of reducing absenteeism for children with special needs
The project activities, mentioned in a joint plan, included three short-term joint staff training events for teachers, promotion, dissemination and valorization activities to ensure the achievement of the proposed objectives.
The results of the project are an indicator of the successful development of the proposed activities. Among these we mention:
•3 short-term staff training events for 38 teachers
•3 workshops organized during mobilities: Special Needs Children (in Romania), How can students be active in classes (in Turkey), Strategies & methods to reduce absenteeism used at Newark school (in Malta).
•3 parent-child workshops and workshops for teachers (over 250 participants)
•an Open Space Conference with the theme Reducing Absenteeism in Children with Special Needs
• 2 articles on absenteeism published in professional journals in each partner school, to share the knowledge acquired within the project
•an online National Symposium on absenteeism, organized by the coordinating school that brought together papers on absenteeism from 46 educational specialists.
• a Facebook and Instagram account created to ensure the visibility of the project and the promotion of Erasmus + program.
• printed materials: calendars, pens, leaflets, keychains, caps, T-shirts, diaries, bags, banners, flags, rollups that ensured the visibility of the project
•press articles and videos published in the participating countries to make the project and its results visible
•a Photo-voice exhibition on e-twinning in which teachers and students published pictures of activities together
•The Guidelines of good practice in preventing school absenteeism in case of students with educational difficulties
Besides direct beneficiaries, the project addressed other categories of interested persons. Other teachers took part in the project as volunteers. Students were involved in activities and in organizing visits, demonstrative lessons, parenting sessions. The parents participated together with teachers and local authorities in information sessions on motivation of children with special needs, age peculiarities, absenteeism. At national level, other teachers were informed through the articles and symposium on the project results.
During all the project implementation we made use of online media to communicate, to share activities and we used e-twinning platform to share photos. Through the Good Practice Guide, available for anyone interested, the experimental methods can be further used by specialists, both as a tool for reducing absenteeism and as a basis for further research on the subject. Teachers in participating schools were equiped with knowledge and tools useful in preventing / reducing absenteeism. In the long term, professional and personal development of the teachers results in the institutional development of the schools with effects on school presence and motivation.
The activities within the partnership had benefits for all the schools involved. As a collateral result of the project is that of the future collaboration with Newark School Malta, as a course provider in another Erasmus + project – Cross the Bridge carried out at CSEI C. Paunescu (2019-2021)

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 45348 Eur

Project Coordinator

CENTRUL SCOLAR PENTRU EDUCATIE INCLUZIVA CONSTANTIN PAUNESCU & Country: RO

Project Partners

• Newark School
• Zihni Üstün Ortaokulu