"Feed4Saving" is a strategic partnership developed by eights schools from Europe, with the financial support of the European Commission through the programme Erasmus+, Key Action2. It emerged from the need to offer schools some concrete tools in order to help them prevent or intervene in cases of school early school leaving, which is a real problem of the education system nowadays, identified as such even by the European Union in the ET 2020. The objectives of the project refer to the causes of the early school leaving phenomenon. Therefore, the project aims to improve students' school performance by equipping them with practical skills in the fields of languages (communication), science, art and cooking, to enhance their engagement and motivation to attend school by implementing effective self-awareness and evaluation tools, to reduce the degree of absenteeism with at least 5% among the students of the partner schools and to improve teachers' skills when dealing with students at risk of early school drop-out, by equipping them with innovative methodology meant to boost students' motivation and involvement. The target group of the project is formed of a number of about 250 secondary school students, aged 15-18, from eight European schools, from countries affected by the phenomenon of school drop-out - Romania, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Turkey and Greece. Six partner schools are vocational, training students in the field of tourism, agriculture and/or food services, a school is vocational in the field of Computer sciences and another school offers academic training. However, all of them are dealing with the problem of early school leaving, implementing different strategies or even concrete programmes funded by the local community (Spain). The project activities are designed in such a way as to involve students in the learning process, while, at the same time, motivating them to attend school. The project will start with a survey, it will continue with the implementation of workshops meant to boost their motivation and also with practical activities within four laboratories on Language (English), Maths, Art and Cooking. In fact, all the activities will be organized around the simple activity of cooking and the laboratories will offer information and working methods that will support this main activity.The methods we are going to use in the project are the non-formal ones (workshops, peer-to-peer, "The human library", "World cafe" etc.) and the laboratories where, by using the theoretical knowledge, students are going to build practical skills. There will be two results developed by our partnership - a collection of resources, entitled suggestively "Boost your class!', meant to increase students' motivation and a pedagogical kit "Teaching through laboratories" offering lesson plans, materials and good practice examples in four modules - Language lab, Maths Lab, Artistic Lab and Cooking lab.By getting involved in this project, the students will understand how important schooling is, they will improve their motivation for attending classes due to the fact that new methods will be employed by teachers and also due to students' direct involvement in their learning/teaching process. Besides these, the valuable exchange of good practice and the development of new teaching methods and materials will allow teachers to make their lessons more attractive, thus contributing to students' success in their school life. The long-term benefits refer to integrating the results in the curriculum of the participating schools and also to their distribution to other interested schools and stakeholders (among whom NGOs, local enterprises - restaurants, catering units, school inspectorates). We aim to develop new activities and projects based on the results generated by this partnership, which can take our ideas further, to a new level.
"Feed4Saving" was a strategic partnership developed by eights schools from Europe and implemented in the period 2016-2018, with the financial support of the European Commission, through the programme Erasmus+, Key Action 2. The project emerged from the need to offer schools a range of concrete tools to help them prevent or intervene in cases of early school leaving, which is a real problem of the education system nowadays, identified as such even by the European Union in the ET 2020. Thus, the objectives of the partnership referred to the causes of the early school leaving phenomenon and the project aimed to: - improve students' school performance by equipping them with practical skills in the fields of languages (communication), science, art and cooking - enhance students’ engagement and motivation to attend school by implementing effective self-awareness and evaluation tools - reduce the degree of absenteeism with at least 5% among the students of the partner schools - improve teachers' skills when dealing with students at risk of early school drop-out, by equipping them with innovative methodology meant to boost students' motivation and involvement. The target group of the project was formed of a number of about 400 secondary school students, aged 13-19, belonging to the eight European schools, from countries affected by the phenomenon of school drop-out – Romania, Italy (2 schools), Portugal, Spain, France, Turkey and Greece. Six partner schools (Romania, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey) were vocational, training students in the field of tourism, agriculture and/or food services, while the Spanish school was vocational in the field of Computer sciences and the Portuguese school offered academic training. Despite this, all of them were dealing with the problem of early school leaving, implementing different strategies or even concrete programmes funded by the local community (eg. Spain). The project activities were designed in such a way so as to involve students in their own learning process while, at the same time, motivating them to attend school. The project started with a survey, it continued with the implementation of workshops that boosted students’ motivation and also with practical activities within four laboratories on Language (English), Maths, Art and Cooking. In fact, all the activities were organized around the simple activity of cooking and the laboratories offered information and working methods that supported this main activity. The methods used in the project were the non-formal ones (workshops, peer-to-peer, "The human library", "World cafe" etc.) and the laboratories where, by using the theoretical knowledge, students were able to build practical skills. There were two results developed by the partnership - a collection of resources, entitled suggestively "Boost your class!', meant to help increase students' motivation and a pedagogical kit "Teaching through Laboratories" offering ready-made lesson plans, materials and good practice examples in four modules - Language lab, Maths Lab, Artistic Lab and Cooking lab. By getting involved in this project, the students understood how important schooling is, they improved greatly their motivation for attending classes (the number of absences decreased by 10,51%, thus doubling the proposed goal), due to the fact that new methods were employed by teachers and also due to students' direct involvement in their own learning process. Besides these, the valuable exchange of good practices and the development of new teaching methods and materials allowed teachers to make their lessons more attractive, contributing in this way to students' success in their school life. The long-term benefits refer to integrating the results in the curriculum of the participating schools and also to their distribution to other interested schools and stakeholders (among whom NGOs, local enterprises - restaurants, catering units, school inspectorates). The partner schools aim to develop new activities and projects in the future based on the results generated by this partnership, which can take our ideas further, to a new level.