Partners came together in Prague for that purpose: To create a project. Prior to that meeting, an extensive correspondence made us agree on the topic, and then the Prague meeting could involve more practical planning. We are seven partners, all focusing on the year group from 6- 12 years. The partners represent primary and lower secondary schools, and most partners have participated in international projects before. The countries represented are Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Norway.Our project deals with the fundamental fact that the only way to obtain a meaningful future for our children and students is to get a job, to become a gainful employer. To get a safe job, having an education is essential. We see excessively many students leave school before they have completed the compulsory years, and they lose the opportunity to go through to a completed education. In this project we will identify those who risk leaving school too early. We will work on their motivation at early stages, as we know that early interference is essential to avoid later drop out. We will use creative ways of teaching the subjects we know traditionally represent most problems, and we will use both traditional ways of teaching, and even creative and fairly untraditional methods and ways of organizing the teaching, to reach those who struggle. We will use practical subjects, like arts and crafts, home economics and music to show how theoretical subjects are linked to the practical world. We will use examples of persons who struggled themselves at school, but have succeeded in getting an education and a job. We will use well-known strategies to give those who struggle with reading and writing a foundation that is stable enough to help them through all the necessary reading and writing they will have to do during their school years. This project is also about detecting what happens in the early years regarding lack of motivation. Too many children lose their motivation in their early teens, although they are highly motivated when they are 1st and 2nd graders. Does it start before the teachers see it through tests? What are the first signs? Our biggest problem is not drop outs at the rather early stage of our target group, it is some way worse. The students we want to identify in this project remain in school because it is the law, but they make a minimum of effort, they show no joy. If you ask them, they say that what they offer is worth nothing, it really does not matter if they are even there. There has to be something vital that we have missed in early years.The dissemination is well planned. Our Romanian partner has experience in this, and we will pretty much follow the experiences they have from previous projects. A separate plan is made for carrying through this part, and all partners will follow this. There are two major parts that needs to be fullfilled if this project will succeed: Our students will benefit from the changed teaching in the classrooms, and the teachers will obtain a lasting change of teaching. To evaluate the impact, we will use the Finnish evaluation form, and the result from this evaluation will give us information as to which extent we have succeeded. In a short perspective, we expect to see better results at tests for the students in our target groups. In the longer perspective, we will see more students completing their schooling, and thus fewer students dropping out of their educational run. The long-term results will be harder to measure, but we cannot refrain from working to change this matter.The transnational aspect is vital for this project, as we face a world that is more open to its citizens than ever before. We will be very clear on the fact that our students will relate to a Europe that is going through major changes, and building a future and a vision without having this in mind, would be wrong. Our project approaches our students who envisage themselves as future active citizens at a local level, but even to those who aim for a career at a regional, national, or even international level. It all starts with completed schooling, no matter your ambitions. Only then, you will have a real choice and actually have the future in your hands.Our students must feel motivated for this project. In this work we will create an "imaginary": a doll, EUNICE (EU, the Acronym of European Union, In greek:“good,” NICE, Beautiful, pretty, in Greek: nike, "victory" is the symbol of the partnership. During the 2-years project she will evolve into a new character, representative of this project. She will travel to all the participating countries and record her travel experiences in her travel diary, written by the children. On this trip, Eunice will make many friends, she will collaborate on making a more attractive school for students, and she is sure that, together, they will discover new things and find that, after all, each student has its future in its own hands.”
Partners came together in Prague for that purpose: To create a project. Prior to that meeting, an extensive correspondence made us agree on the topic, and then the Prague meeting could involve more practical planning. We are seven partners, all focusing on the year group from 6- 12 years. The partners represent primary and lower secondary schools, and most partners have participated in international projects before. The countries represented are Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Norway. In this project we have worked on identifing those who risk leaving school too early. We have worked on their motivation at early stages, as we know that early interference is essential to avoid later drop out. We have used creative ways of teaching the subjects we know traditionally represent most problems, and we have used both traditional ways of teaching, and even creative and fairly untraditional methods and ways of organizing the teaching, to reach those who struggle. We have used practical subjects, like arts and crafts, home economics and music to show how theoretical subjects are linked to the practical world. We have used well-known strategies to give those who struggle with reading and writing a foundation that is stable enough to help them through all the necessary reading and writing they will have to do during their school years. This project has also focused on what happens in the early years regarding lack of motivation. Too many children lose their motivation in their early teens, although they are highly motivated when they are 1st and 2nd graders. Does it start before the teachers see it through tests? What are the first signs? Our biggest problem is not drop outs at the rather early stage of our target group, it is some way worse. The students we have tried to identify in this project remain in school because it is the law, but they make a minimum of effort, they show no joy. The initial objectives were these: •To identify the student's own abilities and decide which of his/her best attitude, trait, and personal value is in view of working in a group to develop his/her motivation in school activities through creative and innovative ideas/strategies • Connect the teaching subjects with the interests and every day needs of the students • Promote innovative strategies (project-based learning, arts in education, game-based learning) to strengthen the self-motivation for students • Promote teamwork, social relations, plan and undertake project activities and use information and communication technologies (ICT). • Allow our students the opportunity to practice foreign languages and increase their motivation towards language learning. The dissemination was well planned. Our Romanian partner has experience in this, and they led us through the experiences they have from previous projects. A separate plan was made for carrying through this part. There were two major parts that needed to be fullfilled if this project was to become a success: Our students will benefit from the changed teaching in the classrooms, and the teachers will obtain a lasting change of teaching. To evaluate the impact, we have used the Finnish evaluation form, and the result from this evaluation gives us information as to which extent we have succeeded. In a short perspective, we expect to see better results at tests for the students in our target groups. In the longer perspective, we will see more students completing their schooling, and thus fewer students dropping out of their educational run. The long-term results will be harder to measure, but succeeding in this part has perhaps been the most important impact. It will take too much to go through the aktivities that have been carried out. We have a detailed aktivity plan for the whole project, and we have followed that plan. The entire activity plan is attached to this report. The transnational aspect is vital for this project, as we face a world that is more open to its citizens than ever before. We have been very clear on the fact that our students will relate to a Europe that is going through major changes, and building a future and a vision without having this in mind, would be wrong. Our project approached our students who envisage themselves as future active citizens at a local level, but even to those who aim for a career at a regional, national, or even international level. It all starts with completed schooling, no matter your ambitions. Only then, you will have a real choice and actually have the future in your hands. Our project mascot has been Eunice, the doll. She has travelled to all the participating countries and recorded her travel experiences in her travel diary, written by the children. This has been an easy and harmless way of introducing the different partner countries to our students.