The main themes of the Partnership are to develop pupils' awareness of local, national and European traditions and cultures through the medium of the Arts and to utilize the Arts across the curriculum. The Partnership will bring about both a collaborative curriculum development programme created, promoted and shared by the Partner Institutions and which has wide cross-cultural parameters and a collaborative continuing professional development programme (CPD) in the Arts for the staffs of Partner Schools and the University which emphasizes wide parameters of cross-cultural international co-operation. The Partnership will raise the status of traditional art forms as mediums of communication of cultural identities. The aim is to create innovatory curricular and resources. To achieve the goals the Partnership will support Institutions in developing to maximum capability their utilization of ICT applications, whilst supporting one another in areas where there is an inequitable distribution of resources. The Partnership is substantial spreading across Europe with a wide range of backgrounds. Seven of the schools have previous successful collaborative working experiences, whilst others joined having been attracted by the proposals. The Art Education Department of Mehmet Akif Ersoy University will lead the Partnership academically being an outstanding fit with the requirements of the project.In terms of ethos, self-view and commitment to one another Partner Institutions will develop close and purposeful contacts which leave a legacy for the schools and the university Education Department and enhance future life choices for pupils and students. Partners wish to develop and enhance learners' views of themselves as contributing European citizens and to enable them to share their lives, languages, education and communities via a range of mediums in an enjoyable, productive and meaningful manner whilst collaborating and sharing experiences with their peers in other countries.For staffs the aim is to promote good teaching practice within Partner Schools and the University and the dissemination of this practice to a wider audience. Opportunities for staff mobilities will be maximized in order to enhance the relationships between staffs and develop the wider European perspective in their operational curricular. One of the clear aims is to produce a practical view of a pedagogy for the use of the Arts in the promotion of cross-cultural perspectives and educational practice which is sustainable in the future. Inter-school meetings, both for cyclical review and training will be directed towards this. The Partnership, led by the Art Education Department of MAEU, will disseminate widely to all interested parties the planning, progression and outcomes in a range of forums and via modern communication technology. The decision taken at the planning stage was that an Intellectual Outcome would be produced which would offer a practical one-stop guide to the use of the Arts across the curriculum within primary education. It will be the accumulation of the experiences, study, research, experimentation and innovations of the Partnership and will be freely available. As well as research the publication will contain guides to the implementation of the agreed advice of the Partnership. Statutory and base line requirements vary across countries and due cognizance will be taken of this. Programmes of work which are cognizant of the needs and aspirations of pupils with special needs or disabilities (SEND) and those who are gifted and talented in particular areas, will be produced as part of the Action Plans. All pupils contribute to planning and assessments. As well as leaving a legacy of good teaching practice within schools, the local communities will have been drawn into participation in the celebration of their own cultures. The project is divided into six Semesters of approximately equal length to allow for differences in school terms in different countries. During the period of the Partnership threads will be followed. Within these threads are included a wide range of activities, plans for the future and activities intended to display the work results to wide audiences, including the production of an Erasmus Festival and Arts activities guides for wider school community consumption.Semesters begin with a Planning & Review Meeting. These P&R Meetings are the administrative driving force behind the Partnership. As well as making administrative decisions they create Action Plans for the coming Semester and rigorously review the work of the previous Semester. Hosting rotates between Partner Schools. In the final Semester the product of the Partnership will be drawn together and all communities involved will participate in a Europe-wide simultaneous Erasmus Festival.The plans meet the criteria of substantial sections of the Key Action 2 expectations and the Strategic Partnership Horizontal and Field-Specific priorities.
Context/background of the project The main aim of the project was to explore a range of arts and traditions from across Europe with the intention of improving the teaching of arts in our own schools and producing readily available practical guidance on how other schools might copy our approaches. Number and profile of participating organisations This project originally involved twelve primary schools (or the primary section of seven of the schools) one kindergarden and one university from 12 countries but one of the two English schools was forced to drop out after one year due to unforeseen circumstances. The Project Coordinator also left at the end of the first year and the Headteacher from the beneficiary school had to take on the coordination role to keep the project on track. Five of the school’s had previously cooperated in a Comenius partnership and five other schools had previous, or current experience of European cooperation projects, Our objectives were: Developing the use and teaching of the Arts across the curriculum Developing and adapting the use of modern communication technology Developing shared staff professional training Improving communication skills in foreign languages (MFL) Promotion of an appreciation of diversity and the feeling of place in the wider community Main Activities Undertaken We divided the project into 6 semesters running from September to January and February to July to accommodate national differences in terms of the school year. Each semester started with a TPM at which we reviewed progress to date and established priorities and actions for school to school contacts during the upcoming semester. At each the host school also led training for all attendees on an aspect of the arts that might be a local tradition or might be a skill possessed by staff or someone from the local community with clear focus on preparing the attendees to be able to go back to their own schools and trial and evaluate the taught approach to an arts technique. In addition we ran three short term LTTE courses for colleagues from the partnership schools to develop practice in the teaching of drama, the use of ICT in the arts and on approaches to using drama and other approaches to improve language. We also organised two multiplier events at which the final intellectual output was planned and coordinated. We always had plans for one single intellectual output that would be a practical guide to the teaching of arts in the primary phase but it was only at these multipliers that plans were agreed and then developed for this to be in the form of a website that was widely disseminated. The university offered their expertise in creating and then hosting this website. Results and impact attained All schools reported substantial improvements in the teaching of the arts in their schools as a result of their involvement in this project as shown by updated needs analysis originally completed at the start of the project. Positive feedback on the quality of the LTTE sessions was very strong and also on the vast majority of the training offered at each and every project meeting on different aspects of the teaching of the arts. The clips and photos of activity in the schools uploaded to the e-twinning site reflect the variety and the quality of outcomes from trialing these activities. Modern communications technology was used throughout by staff to share ideas and experiences on our dedicated facebook pages and on the e-twinning site. The website structure and contents were mostly prepared at the second multiplier in January 2019 and the university have now completed the basic template but the content within the pages has not yet been completed as we envisaged. The feedback from the LTTE on language teaching and the development of support at the meetings to complement the work of the project coordinator in helping colleagues to understand the tasks and ideas that were being discussed suggests we achieved good results in relation to this objective. Finally at a time when The UK’s relationship with Europe is becoming so strained it has been so helpful for the beneficiary school to be able to show Europe’s human faces to its community and for partners it has been re-assuring that the desire to turn their backs on Europe is not shared by all in the UK.