This is a strategic partnership project with five schools from PL, IT, RO, GR and TR which takes social and emotional skills into account. The project course will include two main directions- activities and short term exchanges the aim of which will be to overcome lack of social and emotional skills at an early age and the second one will be searching, observing, practicing, evaluating and transferring the good practices between each other. Our application refers to the particular needs of students according to the needs analysis which took place in all the partner schools. As the project group, we discussed and defined 5 obstacles preventing school success. They include: 1-Lack of social and emotional skills, 2-lack of basic skills, 3-Lack of parental support, 4-Lack of socio-economical needs and 5- Lack of education system requirement. The needs analysis have been done in five schools by taking the observation of the teachers’ view, consultant teachers’ ideas into account, applying basic survey which evaluates social and emotional skills of the students. According to the result we achieved, it can be said that in Turkish and Polish schools, “lack of social and emotional skills” of the students are seen as the most important problems in terms of preventing students from adapting academic success. In Greek and Romanian schools “Lack of Basic Skills” became the first reason for failure. In Italian school number 1 and 2 are seen as the most serious obstacles against school success.After these studies we decided to put “lack of social and emotional skills” as the main point of our project. Developing activities reevant to this aim will help our students both improve their social and emotional skills and their basic skills. Target groups to be addressed in the project are the ones who lack social and emotional skills. We will involve about 100 students in activities which will be applied at every school. The age range is between 6-13. Our project will allow students to identify their emotions and enable them to use them to “facilitate their learning and their ultimate success at school”. Social and emotional skills are determined as five competencies in our project: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal relationships and decision making skills. With these 5 competencies, a student is able to recognize emotions and emotional triggers, make and identify personal and academic goals, demonstrate cooperation and team work, and identify ways to resist peer pressure to engage in unsafe or unethical activities.At the very beginning of the project these 5 subtopics will be prepared in details as seminars and the activities which can be applied in school. Teachers from the schools will be given an extra two- day course.These competences will be integrated into school curriculum with a team work involved by teachers. At the beginning of the project a self-evaluation questionnaire will be applied to students and the needs will be defined. According to these indicators a specific programme will be prepared by the project team and then applied. Administrative staff, PTA will support the teachers doing these works. At the project meetings every step of the studies will be discussed and evaluated. Partners and subtopics/activities/Products are stated as:PL M1- M2 Self-awareness/ Creative Drama Activities / A video collection IT C1 Self-management/ Individual Sports Activities / Tournaments at schoolsRO C2 Social awareness/ Helping Abandoned Children / Visiting Abandoned Children and sharing toys/games/organizing an evening event for themGR C3 Interpersonal relationships / Applying Pedagogical Activities to improve interpersonal relationshipTR C4 Decision making skills/ Outdoor Orienteering Activities / Competition between students groupsMAIN OBJECTIVES- to overcome lack of social and emotional skills in the childhood. - to enable students to use emotions to “facilitate learning and their ultimate success at school- to develop students’ making and identifying personal and academic goals, demonstrating cooperation and team work and identifying ways to resist peer pressure to engage in any misbehaviour.- to improve ICT and language skillsNUMBER AND PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTSStudents: 500 / 500 : 1000Teachers: 50 / 50 : 100Administrative staff: 20 / 10 : 30Parents: 500 / 200 : 700Members of NGOs and local community: 200 / 300 : 500Total number: 2330RESULTS AND IMPACTSThrough our project the 5 partners intend to create both short-term and long-term tangible and intangible results and to achieve the biggest possible impact to future projects and policy processes such as leading students to overcome lack of social and emotional, setting up the project website in order to provide continuous access to the general information of the project activities, progress and results.
This was a strategic partnership project with 5 primary schools from Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania and Turkey which concentrated on social and emotional skills of the students. The project actions were performed according to two main aspects - on one hand, the activities and short term exchanges helped overcome lack of social and emotional skills at an early age, on the other hand schools searched, observed, practiced, evaluated and transfered the good practices between each other. Our project allowed students to identify their emotions and enable them to use them to “facilitate their learning and their ultimate success at school”. Social and emotional skills which are result of the project are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal relationships and decision making skills. With these 5 competences, students are able to recognize emotions and emotional triggers, make and identify personal and academic goals, perform cooperation and team work and identify ways to resist peer pressure concerning unsafe or unethical activities. Project activities in accordance with the goal helped our students to improve their social and emotional skills as well as their basic skills. Students who had lack social and emotional skills were our project target group. We involved more than a 100 students in activities which were applied at every school. The students' age range was between 6-13. We promoted equality, tolerance,active citizenship with the integration of pupils with fewer opportunities and equal opportunities for all pupils and people from the initial or continuous system of education. Furthermore,we also promoted equality between sexes by our mixed groups of sport and study activities. At the very beginning of the project 5 subtopics were prepared in details during seminars and activities which were applied at schools. These competences were integrated into the school curriculum. At the beginning of the project a self-evaluation questionnaire was applied to students at schools and the needs were defined. According to these indicators a specific programme was prepared by the project team and then applied. The administrative staff and PTA supported the teachers in the course of the project. At the project meetings every step of the studies were discussed and evaluated. There were following partners and subtopics/activities/products: PL TM Interpersonal relationships/Applying Pedagogical Activities to improve interpersonal relationship IT C1 Self-awareness/Creative Drama Activities/A video collection RO C2 Self-management/Individual Sports Activities/ Tournaments at schools GR C3 Social awareness/Helping Abandoned Children/Visiting Abandoned Children and sharing toys and games/organizing an evening event involving visiting children, local children and guest children at the Ark. TR TM Presenting Decision Making Skills/Outdoor Orienteering Activities/Competition between students groups/Final evaluation and Report The latest mobility (C4) was expected to be held in Turkey, while the second TPM in Poland. Due to the political situation in Turkey and to the previous terrorist attacks the whole partnership by mutual agreement decided to achieve the final TPM in Turkey(instead of Poland -TPM is without students).It was decided to distribute the total number of the beneficiary students and teachers to other LTTs to Italy, Romania and Greece so that the total number of participants remains the same. Project activities initially foreseen to C4 were made by the project partner in their schools and then presented during the TPM in Turkey. All the objectives of the project were fully accomplished. As we planned the project team was created at each school. Erasmus+ corners were prepared. Digital monitors were placed. Posters and brochures were designed. Leaflets and brochures were distributed to the local authorities and schools in the region. Project teams were presented to the beneficiaries. Mini-conferences were hold for stakeholders. Initial and final questionnaires were applied. Photo books and calendars of 2017 and 2018 were prepared. CD/DVD with project works were prepared. A project website: https//socialandemotionalskills.wordpress.com A project group in Twin-space and E-Twinning platform were done. All project work was evaluated. A Booklet, a book of the project and workshops for final products & outcomes were done. The students and project teams regularly contacted each other. We strongly believe that our project helped our students: - to overcome lack of social and emotional skills at an early age to become successful in the future - to enable them to use emotions to make their learning easier and more enjoyable, thus making them achieve their ultimate success at school - to identify personal and academic goals, demonstrate cooperation and team work and identify ways to resist peer pressure to get engaged in unethical activities - to improve their ICT and language ski