Early participation in decision making processes affecting the lives of young people is essential to their development into active citizens aware of their rights and duties and capable of exercising them responsibly. In this context, secondary schools can and should play a major role as practice spaces where young people can acquire knowledge and experiences of citizenship (local, European and global). There is a need for (1) comprehensive and adequate tolls that may act as step-by-step practical guidelines to be implemented by schools, as well as (2) the development of strategies to engage projects' target groups, namely pupils, and all other relevant school actors, such as teachers, administration and other non teaching staff, as well as parents, with a special focus on pupils that face disadvantage situations. In this sense, this project will target 3 school communities (1200 participants between pupils, teachers and non teaching staff, administration and parents) in partnership with 3 CSOs from 3 EU countries with the main aim to collaborate in research, sharing of best practices and action experiments for citizenship and participation approaches as first steps to create a "Network of Participatory Citizenship Schools". The project will also count with the constitution of local consortiums composed of all relevant stakeholders at local level, that will provide support for local activities. The project envisages to meet the following specific objectives and corresponding results: - Gather, organize, understand and compare information regarding youth active participation and citizenship in the context of each partner school and respective country; - Research and analyze, through a comparative analyses, various models of Participatory Schools and it's impacts in students engagement, early school leaving reduction and school environment; - Create a standard for schools across the European Union member states, in which each step will correspond to a higher level of participation of its members in school community, and correspondingly, to a greater degree of capacity to be Active Citizens on the local, national and EU levels; - Approve Strategic Plans containing the actions that each School community involved in this project will undertake in order to "climb stairs" in the Scale of Reference for "Democratic Citizenship Schools", during and after the period of project implementation; - Encourage young people's active citizenship, with a special focus on pupils in disadvantage situation, through their involvement in decision making processes and structures within the their school environment, which will develop their sense of belonging, commitment and active engagement in issues that affect their lives in the school, local, national and European contexts; - Launch a Network of “Democratic Citizenship Schools”, which will initially include the 3 School Communities involved in this project (acting also as multipliers) and later be opened to other EU Member States Schools. Main project activities will be: - a research phase of School and Country Mappings where focus group discussions, debates, interviews, among other will happen at school community level; - an official project launching, mainly for dissemination/multiplication and engagement purposes, - an international training course, where participants will further discover active participation and work on and approve the Scale of Reference for "Participatory Citizenship Schools”, - 3 local seminars, 1 per country, for dissemination of previous outcomes and to settle each school strategic plan to become a Participatory Citizenship School, - around 10 months of school strategic plans implementation, mainly by the school community, using its own resources and supported by local consortiums, facilitated and reported by the CSO partner, - a final Conference on Participatory Schools (EU level) and the correspondent Conference Paper, for best practices and experience sharing, project outcomes discussion and dissemination and follow-up suggestions, as well a the launching of the Network of Democratic Citizenship Schools and the Participatory Schools Label open to be used by other schools. Project implementation will be based on methodologies that allow for the maximum involvement of the group while valuing every single participant and partner by using active participatory, co-operative, inclusive and experiential learning methods, namely through non-formal education.
Early participation in decision making processes affecting the lives of young people is essential to their development into active citizens aware of their rights and duties and capable of exercising them responsibly. In this context, secondary schools can and should play a major role as practice spaces where young people can acquire knowledge and experiences of citizenship in a learning-by-doing way. A needs based analyses conducted in 2015 concluded that, in this regard, schools were needing (1) comprehensive and adequate tolls that could work as step-by-step practical guidelines to school participation and democracy, as well as (2) strategies to engage relevant school actors, such as teachers, administration and other non teaching staff, and, above all, the students, in this processes. In this sense, the Network of Democratic Citizenship Schools targeted 3 school communities (and around 1000 direct participants) in partnership with 3 CSOs from Poland, Portugal and Slovenia, aiming to promote young people active citizenship through collaboration in research, sharing of best practices and development of action experiments for innovative citizenship and school democracy and participation approaches as the first to the creation of a "Network of Participatory Citizenship Schools". Activities undertaken included: - a research phase of School and Country Mappings, using desk research, focus group discussions, debates, and interviews at school community level; - official project launching events in the 3 school communities that engaged 180 school community members to the project, an international training course where participants deepened their knowledge and developed skills and attitudes for school participation and democracy, and worked on project main intellectual outputs; - the creation and implementation, through a participatory and collaborative process, of a practical self assessment tool for schools that wish to understand their current Participation Level, as the first step to become Democratic Citizenship Schools, the Scale of Reference for Participatory Citizenship Schools (SRPCS) in 6 languages); - 3 local seminars, 1 per country, for local and regional dissemination of project intellectual outputs; - the creation and approval, through a participatory and collaborative process, of Strategic Action Plans for Participation (SAPP) for the 3 school communities (containing actions that all school actor will implement in order to improve their participation level until 2018) as well as the first months of its implementation, mainly by the school communities, with facilitation and reporting by the CSO partner and the support of other local stakeholders; - an International Conference “Participatory Schools 4 Better Democracy” (EU level), featuring key note speeches by experts in school participation and democracy, best practices and experience sharing from the 3 participating countries, the dissemination of project outcomes and the collection of recommendations and suggestions, as well a the official launching of the Network of Democratic Citizenship Schools to be opened other schools and CSOs working in the field. - the launching of the first issue of the annual magazine “Schools & Democracy” compiling the main presentations and results from the International Conference, serving as advocacy tool and also a best practice sharing document. Results of the project include a comprehensive and practical methodology for promoting Participation and democracy in regular public EU schools including an initial participation test using SRPCS, the creation of a working group, the approval of a SAPP and its implementation over a period of time followed by a new test that will provide improvement results. The methodology had concrete successful results in the democratization of the 3 community schools involved in the project and is ready to be used by other schools willing to follow the same path. The project had concrete impact in the schools involved by starting to change the paradigm in the relationships between different school actors and increasing their participation levels in all school dimensions (learning, governance and relations with local and international communities) with a especial focus on including the ones facing disadvantage situations.The project learning by doing participatory approach improved active citizenship by their participants, especially youth, with specific examples of success being already registered and expected long term impacts. During the project, the Network of Democratic Citizenship Schools was launched and its main aims are to raise awareness, promote dissemination of good practices, enhance professional development of teachers, promote school actors' voice, support capacity building in schools and promote schools and educational systems re-structuring and re-culturing processes for Democratic Participation. It will be soon ready to receive new schools and CSOs as members.