TOO YOUNG TO FAIL Erasmus Project

General information for the TOO YOUNG TO FAIL Erasmus Project

TOO YOUNG TO FAIL Erasmus Project
July 7, 2020 12:00 am
188

Project Title

TOO YOUNG TO FAIL

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 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Pedagogy and didactics; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

(Recalled from project proposal)

Early school leaving is the result of a mix of individual, educational and socio-economic factors. Many triggering effects make ESL a complex multisector phenomenon: school failure (disengagement, low achievement, transition between schools and school levels), pull effects from labor market, social and family situation. If it differs from country to country and from region to region, there are some recurrent features: children from vulnerable groups are more likely than others to leave the school system early. Boys are more affected than girls.
Thanks to the constant work on drop out preventive and intervention measures carried out by all 2young2fail partners, the partnership has pinpointed the need to focus on a specific age framework (10-15 years– including both Middle school, and moments of transition between school levels) in 5 countries (IT, NL, ES, PT, UK), to tackle the issue, and potentially intervene when the problem starts arising. 2young2fail leading idea was that, if the causes of school failure and dropout can have roots in the pre-teen years, middle school – a potentially powerful learning time – becomes a critical “make or break” period.
2young2fail identified 3 core needs and objectives and designed associated actions.
Need 1 – to
– provide a cross-sectorial platform of exchange of experiences and practices between partners with excellence initiatives in this area and of different backgrounds and missions, thus fostering a mutual learning process.
– grant access to a wide menu of consolidated comprehensive and cross sectorial prevention and intervention strategies tailored on the specified age group (best practice collection – innovative feature).
– promote focused research on the broad issue of relationship/ social capital (peer-to-peer relationship, school leadership and family engagement) and on its potential impact on drop out measures (innovative feature).
Need 2
The school cannot and must not address independently the broad range of social, emotional and personal needs that affect the academic performance of children. A process was needed for the school and community to avoid isolation, develop a common vision, and build long lasting commitment and collaboration from policy makers, society, family and other stakeholders.
A first important step in building such cohesive vision was to provide institutions’ leaders with the essential content knowledge and materials necessary to develop successful school/community collaborations (reliable, flexible, adaptable and appealing awareness raising /advocacy tools)
Need 3
Need for a continuous professional development and empowerment of teachers and school management, need for school staff to gain a deep understanding of ESL, enhance awareness on their own role in preventing it and to develop the skills to work with other professions and partners, in a “whole school approach” (design, development, testing and sharing of specific training modules and support multimedia tools)
The two level focused on management/strategy (advocacy tools for school leadership) and education/ pedagogical tools (teachers/educators) represents an innovative feature.
Another innovative element of the project was the type of partnership. All 9 partners had a sound regional experience in tackling early drop out. 2 had furthermore participated in ESL related EU projects.
2young2fail brings together players with different backgrounds, missions (4 schools, 1 municipality, 2 non-profit foundations, 1 employers association, 1 higher education body), geographic and social focus (IT, NL, ES, PT, UK).
Moreover most partners had the means to share project outcomes with a significant number of local school communities, and stakeholders (e.g. public administrations, foundations/donors, education practitioners, academia and other stakeholders), well beyond the project boundaries.
All 4 schools (IT, UK, PT, NL) had experience in dealing with drop-out preventive and intervention schemes and were involved at the time in relevant projects with very different social, geographical and cultural contexts (ranging from excellence situations to highly critical environments). All school projects addressed the identified relevant age bracket. 2y2f aim was for the schools to play a strategic role in the definition of research/ advocacy needs and topics, training priorities and multimedia tools design.
The 2 non- profit foundations (IT, PT) the municipality (NL) and Politecnico (PT) had an extensive, sound experience in supporting complex educational projects in specific geographical school/educational contexts, in line with their overall mission of fostering the implementation of sustainable and innovative educational models.
They associated with the teachers employers association (ES) to ensure great impact even beyond the project time/geographic boundaries and also in no strictly school related contexts.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 287190,08 Eur

Project Coordinator

FONDAZIONE PER LA SCUOLA – EDUCATORIO DUCHESSA ISABELLA DELLA COMPAGNIA DI SAN PAOLO & Country: IT

Project Partners

  • Hampton Hill Junior School
  • Agrupamento de Escolas José Saramago, Palmela
  • Gemeente ‘s-Hertogenbosch
  • CONFEDERACION ESPANOLA DE CENTROS DE ENSENANZA ASOCIACION C.E.C.E.
  • Rodenborch-College
  • istituto comprensivo “g.salvemini”
  • INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DE SETUBAL