Time to Shine Erasmus Project

Project Title

Time to Shine

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: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The three participating schools met at a TCA for the first time and discussed the problem of early school leaving and found that the rates at our schools were all high. The Oberschule Geestemünde, for example, has had a higher percentage of drop-outs than the average school in the federal state of Bremen.
Together we set out to identify the manifold reasons for early school leaving and to create this project which tries to tackle as many of them as possible.
We have identified the following issues as the main reasons for early school leaving at our schools, which are interconnected:
1. For many students their needs to develop their skills and potential are not met by the way schools generally teach.
2. The students’ self-confidence is often extremely low. They have no faith in their abilities.
3. Many students don’t feel connected to their schools.
4. Many of these students come from families that are not very engaged at or interested in their children’s schools.
5. Teachers struggle to engage students they don’t seem to be able to reach anymore.

Within our project we want to create a program that engages “high risk students”, often outside the classroom, in order to give them room to explore their abilities and potential and give them time to shine. Simultaneously, our aim is that teachers, parents and the school communities as a whole will benefit from the program.

The main aims of our project are:
1. Reducing the number of early school leavers and increasing the employability of the participating students.
2. Improving the level of key competences and skills (e.g. students and teachers).
3. Supporting educators by strengthening their professional development and skill set.
4. Internationalization of teaching and learning.
5. Creating opportunities to improve foreign language skills (English)
We believe that if we empower every participating person in a child’s school-life, we can ensure that the child itself takes advantage of the chances that he/she is given by school. Therefore, the inclusion of the parents plays a significant role in our project, we aim at a lasting parental support of the children.
We are willing to help those who started their lives with many disadvantages and who need temporary help and guidance to succeed in life. This also includes the idea to help children with migratory backgrounds.

Each school will select 16 students from the ages of about 13 to 16, who are in danger of becoming early school leavers. Other students will be involved in the project in supporting capacities for the main group of students.
Another target group of the project is that of the students’ parents, who will be involved in several activities of the project. By involving them in the project we hope to foster lasting connections between the schools and the families, and to show the students that their parents actually care about what they are doing at school.
The third target group are the teachers. Our aim is to shake up all teachers, by encouraging them to being open to new/different methods, to open up their lessons, etc. The teachers who work closest with the selected group will exchange experiences and good practices at the beginning of the project.

Overall, we are planning four mobilities. One teacher-training mobility and three student mobilities.
The teacher-training mobility will be the first mobility in order to exchange good practices – each school has unique experiences in certain fields that will benefit our project – and train each other on how to prepare and carry out specific activities of our project.
In turn each participating school will be the host of one of the student mobilities. For each mobility the visiting schools select 8 of their 16 students to travel. So, by the end of the project each student in the project will have been a visitor and a host once in the mobilities. During each mobility the group of students will either plan an event at the host school or produce a series of podcasts. By entrusting them with the planning and organization of such an event, we hope to create the opportunity for each participating school to discover skills they didn’t even know they had and therefore make them more self-confident. At the same time the school communities as a whole should benefit from events like these, as they are an opportunity to celebrate the children and show the parents and the teachers what children can achieve if you place trust in them. This way we are working towards our goals of enabling the development of key competences, reducing the number of early school leavers and strengthening the teaching professions at the same time.
Each school will carry out activities between the mobilities in order to work towards our goals, e.g. trust exercises, parent-teacher events, etc.
The partners will provide the European school community with a guide book to instruct other schools on how to implement the project at their schools

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 71172 Eur

Project Coordinator

Oberschule Geestemünde & Country: DE

Project Partners

• STICHTING OPENBAAR ONDERWIJS JAN VAN BRABANT
• IES Virgen de la Victoria