The Europe 2020 strategy has identified within its educational benchmarks that 2020 at least 95% of pre-school children of 4 years or older should participate in early childhood education and care (ECEC). The importance of effectively addressing the theme of ECEC is confirmed by the conclusions of the European symposium on improving early childhood education and care that stated: "benefits from high-quality ECEC are wide-ranging and multilevel, economic and social, for individuals and for societies". Within this framework the TIK project identifies the following needs as crucial for improving the inclusiveness and the effectiveness of early childhood education and care: - Pre - school teachers need to reinforce their capacity to involve their pupils in activities that according to appropriate didactical and communication methods can provide an early start of the development of basic and transversal competences. - Children's families need to raise their awareness of the importance that pre-school can have for the preparation and the passage of their children to compulsory school and in particular for disadvantaged groups (migrants, ethnic minorities, those at risk of social and economic exclusion) for the integration in the social life. - Pre-school children need to develop cognitive and non-cognitive skills through the implementation of cooperative learning experiences, aimed at integrating the normal activities with relational and richer verbal interactions between pupils with a special focus on those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. The TIK project expects to achieve the following results: - Provide pre-school teachers with the skills to use effectively Audiovisuals' learning potential with pre-school pupils to enhance their interest to learning, preparing them to a more active and student centered learning approach - Enhance pre-school children cognitive and non-cognitive skills through the implementation of transnational cooperative learning experiences, also involving their families and aimed at integrating the normal activities with relational and richer verbal interactions between pupils with a special focus on those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. - Provide families with ad hoc learning materials to raise their awareness of the importance that pre-school can have for the preparation and the passage of their children to compulsory school and in particular for disadvantaged groups (migrants, ethnic minorities, those at risk of social and economic exclusion) for the integration in the social life. - Propose to policy makers involved in the definition of ECEC strategies with an innovative paradigm for the cooperation between pre-school services and children families, that main literature on the matter, has identified as a crucial point for enhancing the quality of ECEC services In order to achieve these results the TIK project will develop 2 Intellectual Outputs: Guidelines - A Teachers’ guide focusing on the subject of improving achievement in basic and transversal competences within early and primary childhood education. The Guide will focus on new pedagogical approaches to improve achievement in basic and transversal competences of pre- school pupils; how to build a fruitful cooperation with children families; how to deal with multicultural groups using traditional tales to promote pupils knowledge about different traditions and habits; how to use effectively Audiovisuals learning potential with pre-school pupils; How to create learning oriented educational Videos addressed to pre-school pupils - A Guide addressed to pre-school children families in order to raise children parents, grand parents and caregivers on the importance that pre-school has in developing cognitive and pre-cognitive skills that are fundamental in the transition to compulsory school. The Guide will focus on: the importance and the impact of pre-school on children; the role and the influence of families attitudes in supporting children during pre-school period; cooperation patterns among families and pre-school services. Didactic Toolkit for Kindergartens The Didactical Toolkit for Kindergartens provides access teaching contents based on the use of ICT and Media presenting traditional tales both of the local area in which the children live in and of the countries/traditions of the children from other countries and/or ethnic groups. The didactical units will make use of visual items and in particular will present, while the audio voice is telling the story the drawings made by children to represent their own understanding of the tale plot as it was presented by parents during their participation to school activities.
Context The TIK – Tradition & Innovation @ Kintergarten project started from the Europe 2020 strategy that identified, within its educational benchmarks, that by 2020 at least 95% of pre-school children of 4 years or older would participate in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) The importance of effectively addressing the theme of ECEC where also confirmed by the conclusions of the European symposium on improving early childhood education and care that stated: "benefits from high-quality ECEC are wide-ranging and multilevel, economic and social, for individuals and for societies". In this field the experience of the project partner and the evidence of their everyday activities shows that quality early childhood education and care can bring the highest rates of return over the whole lifelong learning process, especially for the most disadvantaged groups. Objectives The project identified and succesfully addressed three needs that play a crucial role in order to enhance the quality of ECEC: - Reinforce the capacity of preschool teachers to involve their pupils in activities that, according to appropriate didactical and communication methods, can provide an early start of the development of basic and transversal competences - Raise childrens families awareness of the importance that ECEC can have for the preparation and the passage to primary school and for the integration in the social life - Develop pre-school children cognitive skills through the implementation of cooperative learning experiences, aimed at integrating the normal activities with relational and richer verbal interactions between pupils with a special focus on those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds Number and type/profile of participants The project, exceeding by far its initial yet ambitious expectations has directly involved in the project activities and impacted on, a total of: - 50 kindergartens - More than 100 pre-school teachers - More than 1000 pupils - More than 200 among parents, grandparents, relatives and child-carers Representing 4 different European countries and many more different nationalities and cultures Potential stakeholders, to be estimated in more than 40 000 individuals and 400 institutions have been reached through the dissemination activities. Activities and related Outputs Project partners experts cooperated at transnational level in order to produce and make two Guides for the innovation of pedagogical approaches in ECEC directly available and accessible for free and without limitation on the TIK Portal. - Teachers’ Guide (https://tik.pixel-online.org/teachers_guide.php) providing pre-school teachers with a consistent set of learning materials to develop the necessary skills for improving achievement in basic cognitive and transversal skills of their pupils in early childhood education, through a fruitful cooperation with the pupils families - Family caregivers of pre-school pupils Guide (https://tik.pixel-online.org/families_guide.php) in order to raise their awareness on the importance that pre-school has in developing cognitive and pre-cognitive skills that are fundamental in the transition to compulsory school Project partner partners have also worked in close cooperation with pre-school teachers and children families, to develop IO 2 - Didactical Toolkit addressed to preschool pupils. The Toolkit contains didactical materials presenting traditional tales both of the local area in which the children live in and of the countries/traditions of the children from other countries and/or ethnic groups who are present in the participating schools The Toolkit combines: - Exemplary materials related to the methodology adopted for implementing the storytelling activity carried out in each kindergarten https://tik.pixel-online.org/storytelling.php including the collection of drawings / collages / clay sculptures with which children will have represented their understanding of the tale itself - Media based products presenting selected tales through a visual based storytelling and the text of the tale to be used by educators to transfer the contents at transnational level https://tik.pixel-online.org/storyplot.php Results and impact The TIK project successfully impacted on its target groups by: - Strengthening the capacity of pre-school teachers and of pupils’ families to build cooperation patterns - Providing pre-school pupils basic and transversal competences through the transnational comparison of traditional tales linked to the local territory in which they live with the ones linked to the cultural backgrounds of pupils coming from other countries/ethnic minorities - Enhancing pre-school comprehension and communication through innovative audio-visual based approaches and tools - Promoting a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to pre-school education supported by innovative pedagogic materials and references methodological concepts in order to develop children’s cognitive and social skills