The project aims at developing basic skills and entrepreneurship education. Poor reading literacy is often the cause of becoming underprivileged and destitute individuals, lost in inapprehension of rules and procedures of the modern world. In the last decades, ICT competences add to basic skills as well as web portals are increasingly used in everyday life. Reading skills are not meant to be developed per se, but in connection with the developing of social, civic and ICT skills and upgrading with eTwinning project. Book clubs will be established and students will read in their mother tongue (fourteen-year-olds will read for example Jana Frey’s Der verlorene Blick. Lena, the main hero, lost her sight in an accident.) After the story has been read, the students will travel, virtually, across Europe, particularly through partnership countries. They will produce various electronic materials, which will be available to all partners via eTwinning. Perhaps a school outside our partnership will join in. The materials will include presentations of students, country and school presentations, activities in the countries and places, where they will travel virtually. They will describe Europe to Lena, so she will be able to feel all the beauties of the countryside and the pulse of life there. Other group of students will transform into Lena and will write her diary in the form of a blog, where they will report her feelings. Entrepreneurship education has been relatively new in Slovenian and other schools. Students will carry out various entrepreneurial processes from the starting idea to its execution and financial realisation. Students will learn, plan the process, look for different possibilities of execution and provide the financial input for the result in question. They will accept responsibility for the use of resources and the risk of success or failure. Entrepreneurship education will be connected to individual responsibility for the benefit of the underprivileged children. Proceeds from the Erasmus+ bazaar will go to a Bulgarian orphanage which will motivate us for a maximizing result. The focus of the Bulgarian visit will be to encourage entrepreneurship spirit and show through practice that education is needed to implement business ideas in real life. This meeting will not only have its humanitarian purpose due to the proceeds/donations but also due to the participation of centres for students with disabilities, special educational needs, and students deprived of parents’ care, as well as of different ethnicities and minority groups. Intensive and condensed development of social and civic competences, in theory, and through experience, are main goals of learning /teaching activity, organized in Slovenia. On the first day the students will answer the questionnaire which will evaluate their understanding and knowledge of basic civic principles, human rights and common knowledge about European Union. In the workshops that will follow, the students will, in smaller groups, upgrade their knowledge and understanding. At the end of the camp the initial questionnaire will be repeated and the progress evaluated. Considerable progress is expected for two reasons. First, the work intensity, and incessancy on the topics, and second, a week of cohabitation, and company of young Europeans. Civic competences are taught within the curriculum but never with such intensity and brevity. This time we aim at more different and attractive strategy. When thinking of upgrading social competences and developing awareness of ethical values, it is clearly understandable, that they should be tackled in experimental environment. Every personal experience counts. Living Europe in a smaller scale, even for only a week, will undoubtedly be more effective than learning in the usual way in home countries. Senior citizens will be included in a number of project activities. They will be partly included as workshop trainers. On the other hand, students and teachers will carry out computing training courses, various sports activities for senior citizens and cultural events in senior citizens homes. A social gathering will be organized for most active students in project activities, their parents and grandparents. We would like the entire local community to somehow come to life with the project. One of the aims of the project is sharing our experiences with other teaching staff, enabling them to use the materials that will be developed and tested in the project. Good practice examples will be written, as well as the study on developing reading skills, evaluation report, etc. The results will be publicly available at the end of the project. The quality of both learning/teaching activities will be confirmed with Europass certificate and will qualify for Quality label.
There were four schools included in the Education+ project – namely from Bulgaria, Estonia, Italy and Slovenia. Our aim was to improve our knowledge, skills and competences in various fields. In Slovenian schools, and elsewhere as well, different types of entrepreneurial education is relatively new. Students carried out a number of business processes, starting from ideas, proceeding with execution and finishing with financial realization. They learned how to plan the entire process, to research the possibilities for execution of tasks and to ensure the admissibility of the financial input according to result. They took the responsibility of using resources and risk of success/failure. More activities were carried out with the aim of reusing. We are extremely proud of the making of seating furniture from industrial palettes for our school hall. Students actively participated at the craft fair in Komenda – they were selling their own products and the proceeds went into the School fund. Entrepreneurial education was linked to the co-responsibility of the individuals for the benefit of the less privileged. In Bulgaria, in October 2017, donations and crafts for charitable bazaar were made in the camp “PARTNERS FOR PARTNERS, ALL FOR HUMANITY”. All the proceeds went to the Training and rehabilitation centre in Pravets, Bulgaria (seat of the partnership school and camp) for the new jutting roof and the new equipment for the playground. Additionally, German Red Cross contributed with part of the donations. The new jutting roof has already been built and therefore it enables the boarders to meet and play outdoors in weather conditions like rain or heat. Reading skills were conducted in connection with developing social, citizenship and ICT skills and they were upgraded by eTwinning project. Fourteen-year-olds in Slovenia read a book by Jane Frey Der verlorene Blick in their mother tongue. Partner schools chose books with similar contents as the book in question has not been translated into other languages. After reading, the students took a virtual tour around Europe with special emphasis to the partner countries. Various e-materials were designed and have been made available publicly to all partners and a wider audience introducing students themselves, their school and activities, their towns and countries and their virtual travels. Students described Europe for Lena, the main hero of the book in question, to make it possible for her to feel the beauties of the countryside and the hustle and bustle of cities. The book also served as the literary basis for the film I FEEL THE WORLD AROUND ME. Camp MY HOMELAND in Bohinj, Slovenia, proved to be quite innovative. International camps with the main aim of meeting and developing language skills are rather common. So far there has not been a single primary school to organize a content targeted camp specifically on developing citizenship values and European identity and its values. Questionnaires at the beginning and at the end of the camp (after the aim-targeted workshops) measured the students’ progress in their knowledge and understanding – they increased by 23%. A brochure with complete pedagogical material was published. It is available on the website of the project :http://erasmus-os-sencur.splet.arnes.si/ In cooperation with Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia the exhibition ANA FRANK, STORY FOR THE PRESENT, was set up. Our students were trained as guides. More than a thousand visitors showed up, among them two Slovenian schools. The exhibition was an organizational challenge and considerably time-consuming. It was well worth the effort. The exhibition left no one indifferent. And it was quite noticeable. It was introduced in the local paper Gorenjski Glas and on the News programme on TV Slovenia 1. The cooperation with the museum was also introduced on the Cultural Bazaar in Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana. In cooperation with Radio Slovenia our students prepared the contents for radio broadcasting ‘HUDO’ on international cooperation in Erasmus+ project. Almost an hour-long broadcast is available on http://radioprvi.rtvslo.si/2017/02/hudo-15. Many activities were synchronized for all schools and students like Europe Day 2017 – a cross-curricular day consisting of numerous workshops, adapted to students’ age. Senior citizens were also included into a number of activities as providers or as participants in computing workshops, sports and cultural events organized by students and teachers. Project Education + substantially upgraded social competences and developed the awareness about ethical values of all participants, particularly those who personally participated in international meetings. Every personal experience is much more valuable than ordinary lessons at school. The progress has been visible in everyday school activities. The students have become more mature, responsible and cooperative. The bonds among teachers have strengthened .