'Building European Wellness in Learning for Life' (BE WELL) is a project involving 5 schools, within 5 countries which geographically are located in the North, East, South and West of the European Union. This benefits the project immensely as it not only allows us to compare the very best of practice in our varying education systems but also allows all participants to learn about the cultural similarities and differences of our European neighbours and friends. Each partner school has identified that improving the well-being of students is a priority in their school. Base line assessments suggest that more than 60% of students did not feel that they were part of the school community and 50% suggested they did not feel supported by the school. When we looked at research in this area we found this was a national trend, particularly in Romania, Spain and the UK. We also found that each partner school had their own strengths to offer each other and that through collaboration we could develop best practice and work to improve our well-being in each of our schools.The key aims of this project are:1. To improve the variety and quality of innovative teaching and learning techniques.2. To improve well-being in our schools by promoting inclusive initiatives.3. To develop the common European identity by exploring national characteristics.We plan to meet these objectives by working to our strengths:Italy has a strong mentoring system and will run mentoring workshops during a mobility to their country, this will involve preparation online using eTwinning, collaboration between current mentors on best practice from each country and then the training of participants leading to the creation of a Mentoring Guide offering training ideas, situations and structures. The UK and Finland are both using innovative pedagogy in their schools to improve educational attainment, the UK has a strong focus on Growth Mindset pedagogy and Finland has a strong focus on holistic learning through teamwork. There will be preparation online using eTwinning prior to mobilities to these countries, on arrival participants will work together collaboratively and work in multicultural groups to teach and evaluate mini-lessons based upon the pedagogy studied. This and further collaboration online will lead to the creation of a Good Class Guide which offers teaching and learning ideas and examples linked to well-being which can be utilised in various subjects in various countries.Spain and Romania will focus on the promotion of innovative learning through extra-curricular activities, in this case we will be focusing on participants investigating their school environment and the ways in which it can become more environmentally friendly. Through the creation of environment societies students will be empowered to make change in their schools to improve the environment for all in addition to learning life-long skills which will be useful in future employment for example project management, data collection, analysis and evaluation. During each mobility there is also the chance for students to explore the culture and attractions of the country they are visiting. Being Geographically apart from each other each region has something unique to teach participants about the similarities and differences between cultures and their place in the world.Throughout the project there is a big emphasis on engaging and involving as many socio-economically disadvantaged students that we can who would otherwise not have the opportunity to take advantage of the experiences this project can provide. We envisage that these initiatives will benefit students by improving their confidence in academic studies through the use of teamwork and growth mindset pedagogies, that students will have improved understanding, empathy and respect towards cultural differences and that students will have an improved sense of citizenship, belonging and support from the school community through the mentoring and environmental initiatives. The impact of the project will also benefit those who are not participating, teachers will receive training in good teaching practice which will then filter into classrooms to the benefit of students and mentoring systems will help many throughout the school. As we intend to disseminate our findings and resources with local schools and other providers where the impact will multiply as aspects are used and modified elsewhere.In all across the 5 partner schools we anticipate that, due to the whole school nature of each initiative that around 4500 staff and students will benefit from the project and further still after dissemination of materials to local schools.
The main aim of the project was to address the horizontal priority of providing 'inclusive education, training and youth.' Through this priority we agreed on three over-arching objectives: 1. To improve the variety and quality of innovative teaching and learning techniques. 2. To improve well-being in our schools by promoting inclusive initiatives. 3. To develop the common European identity by exploring national characteristics. Through these objectives there was a strong focus on improving the prospects of our socio-economically disadvantaged students and improving well-being for all students. In addition to addressing the horizontal priority our plan addressed the 2020 European Agenda where targets had been set to improve education to "help employability and reduce poverty" and social exclusion. Objective 1 is pertinent to this as all partners were required to provide the best possible educational experience to their students and each partner school had identified that well-being was an area in which each of our schools could,and should, improve upon. There were five participating secondary schools are from the UK, Finland, Italy, Romania and the Basque Country. To meet objective 1, we used a range of pedagogy to create a 'Good Classroom Guide' which provides examples of innovative teaching methods which have supported wellbeing through the encouragement of integration and aspiration. These methods were engineered to help reduce the disparity seen in all partner schools in learning outcomes between those who are, and who are not from, disadvantaged backgrounds. We focused on teamwork and growth mindset pedagogies. All partners collaborated and shared best practice from their schools with the associated mobilities for this being led by the UK who have strengths with the ‘Growth Mindset’ pedagogy which raises aspiration and attainment, and the Finnish school which has strengths with the 'teamwork pedagogy' which encourages integration and promotes diversity in teaching and learning techniques. By sharing best practice each partner were able to improve their teachers competencies and improve their students skills, learning and well-being and share this success with local education providers. We conducted a base line survey which revealed that <50% of students and staff felt supported their school and <40% felt a sense of belonging in their school community. Objective 2 was agreed upon based upon this survey as it suggested there was a need for activities to improve their state of well-being and community cohesion, such as non-formal education activities, initiatives that promote equity in education and multi-cultural projects and exchanges which reflect and/or benefit the school community. To meet objective 2, we used the classroom based pedagogies, to promote inclusive formal education activities and to develop and promote two inclusive non-formal educational initiatives; mentoring groups and environment societies. We created a 'Mentoring Guide' to provide support on how to set up and improve mentor groups in the secondary education field which have been utilised to tackle wellbeing issues such as discrimination, segregation and bullying in addition to assisting with academic issues such as underperformance, stress and literacy. Led by Italy, who already has a very successful mentoring programme, partners collaborated, shared best practice and trained their own students. We created and developed environment societies in each partner school. These societies provided an opportunity for students from all backgrounds to investigate, through informal educational, how environmentally friendly their school was through data collection and analysis. It taught students skills such as project management, presentation and enquiry. As schools improved their school environments through community action they also improved wellbeing as there was an improved sense of community, integration and belonging. It was imperative that this project took place multi-nationally as we were able to: - view and use and adapt the best practice in teaching, learning and mentoring from different parts of Europe. - take advantage of the skills each partner has to ensure success - enthuse and engage students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds - develop our students linguistic, social, civic, intercultural and competences through travel, pre-mobility training, exploration and dissemination. Due to the 'whole-school' nature of the project all pupils in the schools benefitted from activities and initiatives including: - opportunities to lead initiatives, access activities and visit countries - learning new skills e.g. competences in ICT, media literacy through websites, eTwinning and data presentation and analysis. - benefiting from mentoring schemes, either as a mentor or mentee. - having the opportunity to travel and take part in wider school projects that they then disseminate through presentations etc.