The conclusions of European Council and European Commission as well as strategy EUROPA 2020 strongly pointed out the need for development of quality schools, programs, interventions in the Member States to meet the objectives: improvement of basic and transversal skills of students and school staff, improvement of Early years Education and Care, to combat early school leaving, social exclusion and poverty. The education and training systems often do not provide sufficient targeted support for pupils to cope with emotional, social or educational difficulties and to remain in education and training. We, as practitioners, are strongly aware of impact emotional and social competences have on personal development and school performance from pre-school age onwards .The first target group of the project are children and pupils. This project most relevant objective is to improve emotional and social competences of children and students with positive effect on their key competences, prosocial behaviour and academic results. Secondly, we aim to improve inclusive school practice by special focus and participation of students with fewer opportunities facing different obstacles. We expect our approach to have positive effect on early school leaving in the future. The second target group are the teachers and other specialised school staff. The project aims to enhance and develop their professional knowledge, skills and experience by learning and using the innovative teaching method, as well as change in their personal beliefs about specific problems in their work with students. They will also have the opportunity to improve their communication on foreign languages, digital competences, intercultural and personal competences. Third target group are parents, their participation is vital for this kind of interventions and the project aims at improving parents understanding of social and emotional factors influencing the academic results and children behaviour as well as helping the children in the process. Forth target group will be professionals in education at local, regional, national and EU level. The project aim to raise awareness of the topic, transfer knowledge and experience, exchange good practice, derive new similar projects. Next target group is the authorities in education and policy makers and we desire to raise their awareness about the topic, to inform them about effective and quality school programs of this type, foster opportunities to spread this program to other schools and educative environments. We expect building an European identity of schools, internalization development by integrating European dimension in school activities and curriculum. We estimate 3500 participants will have direct and indirect benefit of this project including about 300 participants with fewer opportunities. We aim to achieve this by development, implementation and evaluation of the learner-centered approach based on Social and Emotional learning (SEL). We will combine Emotional Competence program and Promote Alternative Thinking Strategies method. SEL interventions showed positive effects on students without and with emotional and behavioural difficulties, in racially and ethnic diverse student population as well as in urban, suburban and rural regions, and different age groups. We want to work especially on the following aspects: Emotional Self-Awareness , Managing Emotions, More positive feelings about self, school, and family, Harnessing Emotions Productively , Empathy,Handling relationships. Project activities will be integrated in regular class curriculum and extra-curricular activities and developed gradually by teachers and pupils. The children will actively take part in the learning process. The activities will be adapted and sensitive to the age, gender, type of fewer opportunities and personality of the pupils. The project will be cross-curricular including a variety of activities in different subjects (Arts, Science, Music, PE, Maths, language). Special effort will be made to ensure generalization of acquired skills outside of the classroom. The teachers will be trained before and during the implementation of the program. The evaluation and assessment will be carried out in all project phases, especially by school psychologists. Parents will be included and receive counceling and guidance. The main intellectual output will be The Good Practice manual and we will deliver several other tangible materials (eTwinning projects, School mascots, Project logo, Portfolio Talents Books, Multilingual Mini pictionary, Feel Good Song, Smile Corner, DVDs, school movies, plays, presentations of our educational systems and school organisations, evaluation data). We expect longer term benefits like enhanced children competences, better school adjustment, better academic development and more prosocial behaviour.
The conclusions of European Council and European Commission as well as strategy EUROPA 2020 strongly pointed out the need for development of quality schools, programs, interventions in the Member States to meet the objectives: improvement of basic and transversal skills of students and school staff, improvement of Early years Education and Care, to combat early school leaving, social exclusion and poverty. The education and training systems often do not provide sufficient targeted support for pupils to cope with emotional, social or educational difficulties and to remain in education and training. We, as practitioners, are strongly aware of impact emotional and social competences have on personal development and school performance from pre-school age onward .The first target group of the project were children and pupils. This project most relevant objective was to improve emotional and social competences of children and students with positive effect on their key competences, prosocial behaviour and academic results. Secondly, we aimed to improve inclusive school practice by special focus and participation of students with fewer opportunities facing different obstacles. We expected our approach to have positive effect on early school leaving in the future. The second target group were the teachers and other specialised school staff. The project aimed to enhance and develop their professional knowledge, skills and experience by learning and using the innovative teaching method, as well as change in their personal beliefs about specific problems in their work with students. They also had the opportunity to improve their communication on foreign languages, digital competences, intercultural and personal competences. Third target group were parents, their participation was vital for this kind of interventions and the project aimed at improving parents understanding of social and emotional factors influencing the academic results and children behaviour as well as helping the children in the process. Forth target group were professionals in education at local, regional, national and EU level. The project aimed to raise awareness of the topic, transfer knowledge and experience, exchange good practice, derive new similar projects. Next target group was the authorities in education and policy makers and we desired to raise their awareness about the topic, to inform them about effective and quality school programs of this type, foster opportunities to spread this program to other schools and educative environments. We expected building an European identity of schools, internalization development by integrating European dimension in school activities and curriculum. We estimated 3500 participants to have direct and indirect benefit of this project including about 300 participants with fewer opportunities. Partnership included five pre-primary and primary schools from Spain, Croatia, United Kingdom, Italy and Romania. Three partners (Spain, Italy and Romania) had a lot of experience in European Union funded partnership projects. Croatian and UK partner participated in these kind of project for the first time. All schools had experience in inclusive practice but different models are applied and that is the added value for this project. Project objectives were reached by development, implementation and evaluation of the learner-centered approach based on Social and Emotional learning (SEL). Project activities were integrated in regular class curriculum and extra-curricular activities and developed gradually by teachers and pupils from 4-11 years of age. Main activities started with transnational project meeting and Training event organised in Spain, followed by transnational project meeting every six months and finalized with Multiplier Event held in Croatia. The evaluation and assessment was carried out in all project phases, especially by the partner project leads and the lead Co-ordinator, an educational psychologist. The main intellectual output was a Teaching Manual : Ways to SMILE : a Handbook for Teachers and an accompanying Emotions Pictionary in five languages. We also created several other tangible materials (Webpage,eTwinning project, School Mascots, Project Logo, Portfolio Books, SMILE Song, Smile Corners , School Movies, School Performances and Power Point presentations). Impact was attained on personal level (pupils, teachers, parents), school level (innovative curriculum, school climate, interpersonal relations, school image and position in local and regional communities), community level ( local, regional and, in some partner countries, national educational organisations and authorities were introduced to our methodology and results). We expect longer-term benefits because social-emotional learning is strongly supported by our school's headmasters and school curriculum. The Handbook is downloadable, open educational resource and many schools showed significant interest for our project activities.