HEY: Teacher, don't leave the kids alone

Scientific manager: Patrizia Sandri

HEY logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sector: School Education

Unibo structure involved: Department of Education Studies «Giovanni Maria Bertin»

Unibo Team: Maurizio Fabbri; Giovanna Di Pasquale, Martina Brazzolotto, Cristina Poli

Project Duration in months: 24 
Start Date: 01/10/2016
End Date: 30/09/2018

Budget: 232.852 euro  
Unibo Budget: 45.825 euro

Coordinatore: IERFOP ONLUS (IT)
Partners:

  • Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (IT)
  • University of Lodz (PL), 
  • Tricherousa primary School (CY),
  • Vilnius College (LT),
  • Novo Mesto (SL)

Description
HEY project refers to the adequacy of training approaches used by primary school's teachers with relation to the main trends of social change in progress. These trends apply to:

  • Family changes and the arrival of new type of families, more complex and with more members;
  • Evolution of educational and existential styles;
  • Diversification of cultural context;
  • Extension of the gap between rich and poor people and the crisis of middle class;
  • New learning approaches and educational disadvantage.

“Inequalities persist in European education systems. Pupils from poor socio-economic backgrounds perform worse at school than their peers in all EU countries. Children from immigrant backgrounds, the disabled, and Roma children are among the most vulnerable groups affected. At the same time, there are large differences between countries in the extent to which family background influences learning outcomes". (Source: EU Commission).

In this context, the school is one of the main pillar against the process of social molecularization but, in order to act efficiently, must be able to engage with different interlocutors than those of the past and different from each other for many reasons: needs, expectations, values, training models.

The project is based on the idea to create specific training tools to enable teachers to engage directly, at least potentially, with each student (especially with those at risks of exclusion for social or economic  reasons, or for cognitive or physical disabilities) and each family in an individual and group way, to reconnect this relationship into networks of exchange and social cohesion to take them away to their solitude and/or prevent the risk that they establish new types of solitude in their scholastic experience.

This dual ability to welcome/receive, through enhancing practices of individualization and the connection of individual differences, is the essential requirement of every inclusive school, able to reflect the evolution of the needs traditionally attributed to the deficit area.

The aim of the project is to empower teachers engaged in children education (and, consequently, the students together with their families) in practical skills that allows them to handle daily challenges more effectively and enhance their ability of inclusion and their level of social wellbeing in a sustainable way.

Moreover, an added value is the creation of a "Protocol" containing the procedures, the learning approaches, training tools and physical/logistic aspects of the "inclusive learning environments" that will be used as a guide for the validation and certification of these specific inclusive skills and competencies.

So, in this framework, the expected results, can be listed as follow:

  1. raising awareness of the importance of inclusion and social wellbeing and families/schools relationship in educational paths
  2. building the ability of teachers to engage directly with each student and each family in an individual way, (to reconnect this relationship into networks of exchange and social cohesion to take them away to their solitude and to prevent the risk that they establish new types of solitude in their scholastic experience). lt is expected to transfer, in a first step, to 12 primary school teachers (2 per partner), the inclusive competencies provided by the use of the new training tools. Considering a so called "cascade model" effect, these teachers will transfer to other 10 colleagues these competencies (at the end of the project, the teachers trained will be 120)
  3. providing training tools to ensure an optimal and social environment; (the use of tools by more than 2,500 teachers is expected in the schools of the partner countries involved and in general in Europe)
  4. creation of a more inclusive school structure model and a more inclusive model of learning environment, easily transferrable.
    In this way the training facilitates the target groups to improve their performances, under the different points of view, in educational paths.
  5. creating electronic tools, apps for smartphones and other online tools, addressed to target groups, with the aim to facilitate the decreased early school leaving among the students involved
  6. creating a protocol, containing a scheme for the validation of competencies (according to EQF) in the framework of social inclusion in school teaching. (nr of expected adoption of the Protocol by schools or public bodies: 5 per partner country + nr of teachers requiring the certification of competencies through the procedures contained in the protocol: 500).         

The project comprises of 9 Workpackages (WPs): WP 0: Management. WP1: Transnational Analysis. WP 2:

New methodologies and approaches for teachers. WP 3: Pilot implementation. WP 4: Training

Tools/Protocol. WP 5: Electronic resources. WP 6: Quality assurance. WP7: Dissemination.

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union