“Tolerance and quality inclusive education in school” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Tolerance and quality inclusive education in school”

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Romas and/or other minorities; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

In 21st century EU schools are becoming increasingly diverse. Educators need to have tools which offer a comprehensive and high quality education to these heterogeneous students, while attending the particular needs of each child. The goal of this strategic partnership is, through the exchange of good practices, to strengthen the competences of teachers and other agents in the educational community to favor inclusion and a positive environment, which allows an optimal level of learning and an integral development of students.

“Tolerance and quality inclusive education in school” is a 2-year strategic partnership which directly trained 26 participants from the education community of 2 Schools: Svete Primary School (Latvia) and Warsaw Montessori School (Poland) and a non-formal educational NGO, Permacultura Cantabria (Spain). The project was designed based on a previous diagnostic study of each entity. Thus, the 4 main goals of the project and the activities needed to achieve them, were established.

At the end of the project, participants had:
– exchanged good practices to promote inclusion and interculturality in the classroom;
– improved the quality of their teaching methods in maths, natural sciences and literacy;
– acquired new tools (emotional management and playful teaching) to deal with disruptive behaviors in the classroom and other barriers to learning;
– learned new tools to promote digital learning and linguistic diversity among their students.

Activities included the realization of 2 transnational meetings in which 2 representatives of the participating entities reviewed the working plan and evaluated the current state of the project. The kick off meeting was carried out in Latvia but it was not possible to travel to Spain for the final meeting due to COVID19 crisis, so the partners decided to have a virtual final meeting instead.

The following three learning activities were meeting the project goals:
– On March 26-28, 2019, a participatory visit to Warsaw Montessori School in Poland was successfully implemented. The main objective of the visit was learning first-hand the Montessori philosophy and teaching methods. We also took the chance to share our main best practices and know each other better. Spanish and Latvian participants offered a workshop that was attended by Polish educational community.
– On May 8-10, 2019, a participatory visit to Svēte Primary School in Latvia was successfully implemented. Main objective of the visit was to share good educational practices to support and monitor the children’s development, taking advantage of all the resources that school offers. In addition, our partners presented to teachers the good practices carried out by their organisation.
– On 28 June-6 July, 2019, an 8-day training course was carried out in Cantabria, Spain. Aim of the course was to improve the educational competencies of the participants by receiving formation in the Montessori Pedagogy, emotional management and learning spaces. The partners, according with the final participant’s needs, agreed to focus on math teaching through the Montessori method, and the application of emotional management to specific problems arising in the school classroom.

In order to ensure that the learning outcomes reach all members of the educational community, an internal workshop was carried out at each of the entities. It highlighted a summary of practices exchanged and lessons learned. To implement some of the acquired skills and tools, a series of work commissions were created in the schools. This allowed members of the educational community who wish to decide, evaluate and collaborate in the implementation of various practices to improve the quality of education, in each educational institution. To summarize the work done in the commissions, the inclusion policy of each school was reviewed and changes were gathered in a specific regulation that will be annually updated.

Other project results were: a better formation of the educational agents of the 3 participating institutions, enabling an improvement in their quality of teaching. They saw their teaching capacities strengthened in mathematics, science, language, ICTs; as well as their competencies for emotional management, diversity, interculturality, inclusion and conflict resolution. As project impacts, the partnership expect better academic results and greater inclusion of the heterogeneous students who learn in the 3 institutions in the short and long term, as well as a better classroom environment and a greater satisfaction of the educational community.

Through the intensive dissemination campaign of the project results, the partnership sought to inspire other EU educational institutions with similar needs. After the completion of the project the 3 entities keep collaborating in the framework of a transnational network of organizations interested in emotional education (EuroMotional).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 45657 Eur

Project Coordinator

Svetes pamatskola & Country: LV

Project Partners

• ASOCIACION CULTURAL Y MEDIOAMBIENTAL PERMACULTURA CANTABRIA
• Niepubliczna Szkola Podstawowa Warsaw Montessori School