The project "Edu Care Fully"" was born from the idea of some students who suggested support activities in order to help some of their colleagues who have weak school results. We know that in each school there are students that have good results and students who are not good at school due to different reasons: their lack of interests, teachers’ uninspired lessons, students coming from social disadvantaged areas or from migrants’ families, students who have special needs. Groups of students with good grades (who are participating in this Erasmus+ project) together with their teachers will identify a number of pupils that need help in order to improve their grades and pass National Evaluation and also to diminish the possibility of school failure. Mixed groups of pupils (having good and bad marks) will stay together in class at different lessons and work together in different projects. Each student that needs help will spend additional hours of after-school help (e.g. At least 3 hours a week preparing for school and 2 hours a week for extracurricular activities). They will make some projects on various themes: e.g. the most popular food in their countries, the most famous museum or monument, the most famous musician / sports man or woman – living personalities in each country, the social network more used. The projects can be in form of a Power Point presentation, CDs with video or audio recordings etc. All activities will be recorded and uploaded on the project site (using Twin Space). The aim of the project is to enable pupils from partner schools to help colleagues from their own schools that either are at risk of school failure or have special educational needs to improve their grades and personal development. They will improve their digital skills (e.g. working on projects, designing web pages or blogs), their linguistic skills (communication in mother tongue and foreign languages) and their social skills (helping those in need). All of this will help them to become more self-confident and social-aware European citizens.The objectives of the project:- To improve the pupils’ sense of initiative and entrepreneurship - To improve the pupils’ knowledge of foreign languages- To improve the pupils’ digital competencies- To increase pupils’ active participation in social life- To increase pupils’ motivation for daily school and after-school activitiesThe project should be carried out trans-nationally to gain information about how other schools deal with school failure, to exchange good practice models. Working both inside their school and outside their countries, pupils’ work gathers a European dimension. They foster their creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and active citizenship.The project will be a joint activity of seven different countries from all corners of Europe: Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Greece, Germany and Latvia. In the project will work between 200 to 350 pupils from each partner school and 10 to 40 teachers from each partner, depending on the school size. The pupils are between 10 to 17 years old and the teachers have different specialties. FINAL PRODUCTS: - The final product of the first year will be a multilingual book, in digital and paper form that contains all the stories written by all partner schools on the given themes.- The final product of the second year will be a multilingual book, in digital and paper form that contains all the stories written by all schools on the given themes.- Every story will be written both in English and in the languages of the countries involved.- The final product of the whole project will be a web site containing all materials produced by pupils and teachers.- Intellectual output: A good-practice booklet about introducing A PEER-LEARNING METHOD into different schools and various subjects.Pupils will work together, being both promoter and developer of the activities. They will work together during classes and in their free time. Pupils will do school assignments and extracurricular activities. They will use computers, books, magazines, mother tongue and foreign languages and they will produce Power Point presentations, documentaries, and albums with photos. Pupils will learn more about their own culture and about others. They will voluntarily help those in need, becoming better people and aware citizens. At the end of the project, the pupils are supposed to become autonomous learners. The pupils who previous had bad grades are supposed to become aware of the importance of going to school and of learning.
Context/background of the project The “Edu Care Fully” project was born from the idea of some students who suggested support activities to help some of their fellow students who had weak school results. In each school there are students who have good results and students who are not good at school for various reasons: lack of interest, uninspiring lessons, students from socially disadvantaged areas or migrant families, or who have special needs. Groups of students with good grades and those who needed help were identified by each school. These mixed groups (having good and bad marks) stayed together during different lessons and worked together in different projects on various themes: technologies, cinema, art, history, sports, healthy food and lifestyles, traditions, local culture and folklore, entrepreneurship, marketing, and finance. The projects involved the use of presentations, questionnaires, statistics, video recordings, essays, etc. All the activities were recorded and uploaded to the project website (http://www.educarefully.eu). Objectives The aim of the project was to enable pupils from partner schools to help fellow students who were either at risk of school failure or who had special educational needs to improve their grades and further their personal development by increasing their motivation for daily school and after-school activities. The project was carried out transnationally to gain information about how other schools deal with school failure and to exchange good practices. We aimed to improve the students' digital skills (e.g. working on projects, designing web pages or blogs), their linguistic skills (in their mother tongue and in foreign languages), their social skills (helping those in need), and their sense of initiative and entrepreneurship so they could become more self-confident and socially-aware European citizens. Number and profile of participating organisations The project was a joint activity of seven countries from all corners of Europe: Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Greece, Germany and Latvia. Between 200 to 350 pupils and 10 to 40 teachers from each partner school participated in the project, depending on the size of the school. The pupils were between 15 to 19 years old and the teachers had different specialties. Description of main activities undertaken Pupils worked together, being both promoters and developers of the activities. They worked together during classes and in their free time. Pupils did school assignments and extracurricular activities. They used computers, books, magazines, mother tongue and foreign languages, producing presentations, essays, surveys, meeting evaluations, vocabulary tools, photo albums and videos. Pupils learned more about their own and other cultures. Results and impact attained The final product of the project is a booklet, in digital and paper form which contains all the materials produced, the activities carried out, the best practices and ideas developed from the project by the international group of teachers. The second final product is a website where the project can be followed (news, photos, etc.) and where we uploaded all the materials produced. At the end of the project, the pupils have become more autonomous learners and those who previously had bad grades felt part of an international group of students in which they could give their opinions and ideas, and work in conditions of equality. Longer-term benefits - Networks of students, families, teachers and schools that can continue collaborating individually and/or institutionally beyond the project timeframe - Foreign linguistic competences, digital competences and appreciation of other European cultures for teachers and students - Importance of working together in multinational teams in the same European working and studying space - Importance of the sense of equality among students; all of them can contribute if they are helped and they feel and are treated as equals - Improvement of methodologies and school management thanks to the exchange of best practices - Dissemination of the Erasmus+ Program among students, teachers and in the school/municipality (families, organisations, institutions…) - New students, families and teachers want to know more about the Program and want to enrol in other projects - The project website and results will be available for other European schools that want to use the information, to put in practice some of the practices developed - Various references will be available on social networks, eTwinning or the Erasmus+ platform which will improve the dissemination and sustainability of the project - The students learned to voluntarily help those in need, becoming better people and more aware citizens