Self and external Evaluation of QUality in Europe to Nourish Childhood Education Services Erasmus Project

Project Title

Self and external Evaluation of QUality in Europe to Nourish Childhood Education Services

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: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Quality Assurance

Project Summary

“Learning and education do not begin with compulsory schooling – they start from birth. The early years from birth to compulsory school age are the most formative in children’s lives and set the foundations for children’s lifelong development and patterns for their lives. In this context, high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is an essential foundation for all children’s successful lifelong learning, social integration, personal development and later employability” (as states the Report of the Working Groups on ECCE under the auspices of the European Commission, Proposal for key principles of a Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care”, October 2014).

The SEQUENCES project aimed at responding to the need to improve the quality of ECEC private and public services with adequate tools for the self and external evaluation of quality, by directly involving providers and relevant stakeholders as quality development partners. To be effective at providers’ level Quality Assurance systems must be implemented through a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down imposed set of requirements. The specific objectives pursued were:
1. to promote a culture of quality and quality assurance approaches at ECEC settings level
2. to develop ready-to-use tools for the self and external evaluation of quality, with transnational validity, based on the 5 quality areas (access, workforce, curriculum, monitoring & evaluation, governance & funding) as identified by the European Commission with the Proposal for key principles
3. to come up with guidelines and recommendations for the key stakeholders, in order to support their acquisition of quality management mindset.

The project brought together 8 partners from 7 countries – Italy, Romania, Ireland, Malta, Lithuania, Hungary and Belgium, namely: private and public ECEC providers – respectively Cooperativa SEM (IT) and Grădiniţa cu P.P Zâna Zorilor (RO), national-level education trade unions – Lithuanian Education Trade Union (LT) and Malta Union of Teachers (MT); a VET provider delivering continuous training to ECEC professionals, with professional expertise in Quality Assurance – FORMA.Azione srl (IT), academia with the Observatory Centre for Educational Development (HU) of the Corvinus University of Budapest; national policy-level non-profit organisations – Early Childhood Ireland (IE), EU networks of relevant stakeholders – European Parents’ Association (BE).

3 Intellectual Outputs were developed:
IO1 – SEQUENCES Toolkit for the Self and External Evaluation of Early Childhood Education and Care Provision with 34 tools distributed on the 5 quality areas and an additional Common Area, focused on quality management instruments
IO2 – Training Curriculum and Related Didactic Materials for Quality Management in ECEC – including 34 learning activities, as well as team-building, needs assessment and evaluation activities and tools
IO3 – Multistakeholders Guidelines for the implementation of the Toolkit with tailored recommendations to the needs of different target groups.

The main activities carried out can be summed up as follows:
– distribution of a questionnaire on the quality in the settings and good practices that reached out around 800 respondents
– 1 study visit in Dublin (IE) to identify and share good practices and to compare quality systems for ECEC services in various European countries
– 1 training of trainers in Budapest (HU) aimed to learn and reflect on the SEQUENCES Toolkit in order to assure smooth piloting and test the training curriculum together with the didactic materials
– 6 training sessions in IT, IE, LT, MT, RO and RS that involved a total of 108 ECEC professionals from 31 settings that served as preparation for the piloting activity
– piloting of the Toolkit in the 6 countries, that involved a total of 112 professionals, 28 settings and indirectly 1673 children and their parents and families
– 5 transnational project meetings in Perugia (IT), Vilnius (LT), Hamrun (MT), Cluj-Napoca (RO)
– the visiting of ECEC structures in IE, LT, HU, MT, RO
– 6 multiplier events and a round table to disseminate the Intellectual Outputs produced among 437 attendees
– translation of the outputs in Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and Serbian
– communication and dissemination towards over 4.000 people.

In terms of results, it is worth highlighting:
– partners’ organisational improvements of their quality assurance systems and among their members in terms of developed competencies
– raised awareness at local, national and European level on the importance of having efficient, effective and tested tools for the self and external evaluation of quality for ECEC provision and the importance of having a wide variety of stakeholders in the entire process
– opportunity to learn from mobility activities for ECEC professionals who usually are less involved in this kind of actions.

For more details, please visit: https://sequences-project.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 342726,98 Eur

Project Coordinator

FORMA.AZIONE SRL & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Malta Union of Teachers
• BUDAPESTI CORVINUS EGYETEM
• Gradinita cu Program Prelungit Zana Zorilor
• SEM SOCIETA COOPERATIVA SOCIALE
• Lietuvos svietimo profesine sajunga
• ECCE & PLAY EARLY CHILDHOOD IRELAND
• EUROPEAN PARENTS ASSOCIATION