Teaching ethical values should start among preschool children but a quick examination of kindergarten curricula shows that ethics is not a frequent theme discussed in the kindergarten. Also a comparative study of preschool activities shows that young children get involved in activities like constructing games, playing with toys, reading books, playing in the sandpit, using playground equipment, language, communication, art/creativity, health and physics whereas themes such as ethical and social issues seem to be neglected.This project is developed by UK, IT, LT, EE, TR with the aim of introducing moral values and ethics into pre-school education. The theme is decided by negotiation of all partners during preparation process. The tasks have been equally shared between all the partners. The project intends to increase the quality of kindergarten education and care services and it also aims to make it more accessible. Several preschool curricula will be analyzed and we will also make a theoretical study of ethical issues that should be forwarded to preschool children. Under the terms of the project, we will conduct a research of moral values of preschool children and a research among teachers and parents about the ways in which they try to acquaint children with ethical values. The project will provide more enjoyable education and training programs for kindergarten teachers and it will also address the individual needs of parents for ethical education of their children. Since all the partners invest in innovation and stated their school as applying an innovative strategy, there are different good practices at every institutions. The project will help to integrate those good practices and methods from each other in the daily activities of kindergarten curricula by teachers, so we will provide a strategic professional development for staff in line with individual needs and organisational objectives.Our themes are moral values, celebrations and culture of European countries. Connecting all of them, we will address the importance of tolerance and equality among friends in our kindergartens. The project will also promote team work, growth of children's imagination and healthiness (making up their own disciplines on internal Olympic Games, organizing their own kindergartens' special days, taking part in the project's international celebration days, eating habits, healthy meals for kids etc.), their socialization with each other and quality of time spent with their families.OBJECTIVES-To plan and conduct the activities in the field of social and emotional child development as a part of kindergarten practical curriculum. -to make a theoretical study of ethical issues that should be forwarded to preschool children-to conduct a research among teachers and parents about the ways in which they try to acquaint children with fundamental principles of ethics like fairness, honesty, empathy, truthfulness, responsibility, gratitude, patience etcThis project does not contain pupils’ mobilities. It focuses on comparing different education systems, transferring good practices, developing new approach and methods on how to integrate ethical values at preschool education, creating a better school curricula, developing our teachers’ language and ICT skills, making intercultural dialogue and professional capability.NUMBER AND PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTSTeachers/Adults: There will be teams of 8 teachers at each partner organisation so 40 in total will take an active part in the project activities. There will be pre-school teachers, a teacher of English,a Physicological Counselor, an ICT teacher from the neighbourhood will also be involved in the project. Approximately 250 teachers/adults will be indirectly affected.Administrative staff: The head teachers and a deputy heads will take part in the project, on average 15 administrative staff will be affected.Families: The number of the family members will be 100 in total and they will contribute to introduce the host country’s culture, tradition and to prepare traditional food for an international evening. Approximately 2000 family members will be partly affected.Local community: Local community like local press, municipality, directorate of national education and PTA will help to disseminate the project to a wider community. Approximately 200 people from local community will be indirectly affected.RESULTS AND IMPACTSThrough our project the five 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 develop moral values.
The five partner schools recognised that within Early Years education there was very little, if any, explicit teaching about ethics and moral values. In order to address this issue the project ‘Moral values in preschool education’ was devised. The focus of the project was to raise the profile of ethical and moral values in a preschool setting in order for young children to have experience of quality learning activities, which would impact on their ability to develop their social skills. Through research, the project would also provide information about teachers’ and parents’ approach to the fundamental principles of ethics and moral values, in order to improve professional practice and to attempt to bridge any ‘cultural gaps’ about social behaviour between home and school. The profiles of the partner schools were varied, ranging from settings which took children from the age of two years old, for example in Estonia, to the larger setting in Italy, which was made up of eleven settings across Lanciano, catering for children from age three to thirteen. Welford and Wickham CE primary school, a small rural school in West Berkshire, was the coordinating partner, with their executive headteacher, working across two schools, leading the project. The main objectives of the project were to: Work together to identify engaging learning activities which would promote an understanding of moral values in young children; Share good pedagogical practice within and beyond our settings to support staff professional development; Conduct research into the understanding that young children have of moral values and into the attitudes and approaches of teachers parents and carers towards this aspect of child development; Develop new and innovative approaches to the teaching of moral values in preschool education; Create resources and guidance for teachers parents and carers in how they might enhance the education of young children through focus on moral values. It quickly became apparent that this was a complex and extensive project and therefore it was important to begin with a clear focus about how the project would proceed and have a shared, staged approach. The first task was to decide which moral value would be a good starting point for everyone to focus on; it was decided that this would be ‘respect’. We chose the book ‘Blue Penguin’ by Petr Horáček, as a shared stimulus for our initial ideas, asking the children to think about self-respect. We agreed some shared activities and also that we would devise our own planning meet the needs of the individuals in our settings. We discussed questions we would ask the children for delivering activities and agreed that we would repeat the questionnaire with the children once the activities have been completed in order to measure impact. The next step was to think about respecting others.In order to engage teachers, parents and carers, we then shared and taught traditional playground games from our partner schools. Expertise from the Lithuanian team was fundamental in creating videos with subtitles as a resource which could eventually be shared with other colleagues. We also devised a questionnaire for teachers parents and carers in order to ascertain there attitudes and approaches to educating the children in a range of moral values. The results of this research was analysed in order to identify any common themes or gaps, which we could use to develop the project and enhance its sustainability. The final phase of the project was to create the training resource online for professionals and handbooks activities the teachers and parents which they could use independently either at school or at home, in order to promote and enhance the teaching and learning about moral values. The handbooks were formatted in such a way that they will uniform to create a professional looking, user-friendly resource, which included the blue penguin project logo created by the Turkish team. In order to capture the experience and learning, from the project, each partner school completed their own part of the final research document based on a shared model, which was standardised, and included all the common threads which had formed the solid basis of the partnership of professionals involved. This was then collated, along with all the informative PowerPoint presentations, photographs, additional documentation and the hand books onto a DVD and disseminated to each of the partner schools. Resources were also uploaded on to Twinspace, and links added to the schools websites. Each of the partner schools has committed to continuing to use the resources as part of their early years curriculum for the foreseeable future, in order to embed the teaching of moral values in preschool education.