The Strategic Partnership in the field of education supporting exchanges of good practices and called GRIET (Transnational GRoup for Inclusive Education) is part of the Erasmus + programme planned for 2016-2018 as defined in the European Council conclusions on “inclusion in diversity context” and outlined in the March 2015 Declaration of Paris. It meets the objectives set in the framework law "Loi d'orientation et de refondation de l'Ecole de la République" (July 2013), which is a new action plan for school to strengthen teaching republican values. The GRIET project 2017-2019,“lexical learning in diverse contexts” is based upon the necessity to learn and understand the language taught in class for the successful inclusion of allophone, non native and non French speaking pupils, travellers and recent refugees, and of also vulnerable French speakers with specific needs for whom the language taught at school stands in the way of progress and successful educational path. Suggested by the academic delegation for European and international relations and cooperation of Lille (DAREIC), the GRIET partnership project is intended to encourage European partners in education to cooperate and exchange on the concept of ‘school and education equality’- which consists in reducing disparities and inequality in learning outcomes affecting learners with disadvantaged backgrounds- in order to change into inclusive education process bringing success for all. In order to do so, GRIET gathers four different European countries with different teaching and educational contexts. GRIET promotes and supports the professional exchanges of good practices in inclusive and equal education in order to help schools struggle against issues affecting learners with disadvantaged backgrounds. The partnership consists of: - for France : the Authority of Lille (Rectorat), represented by DAREIC,coordinator of the GRIET Project and of the GIP FCIP in charge of managing the non- governmental funds, the CASNAV (academic centre for the education of new comers or travellers); two primary schools from low end of education spectrum (REP: priority education area, Ecole Brossolette, Ecole Olivier de Serres) hosting travellers, Romany and non –French speaking pupils; a REP secondary school (Collège Lamartine, Cambrai)hosting French speakers with special needs in classes known as ‘inclusive’. - for United-Kingdom: the Leeds City Council with its Learning Improvement Team, responsible for the training of teachers who work with pupils studying EAL (English as an Additional Language); two elementary schools , the Hovingham primary school and the Bankside primary school, and a secondary school, the Co-operative Academy of Leeds, these three schools are mostly hosting EAL students from ethnic minority backgrounds. -for Romania, the Inspectorate (a group of supervisors) from the region of Bacau collaborating on the project with two schools involved in the regular inclusion of children, members of the Romany community (Scoala Gimnaziala Nr.1 Valea Seaca) and Csango-hungarian community ( Mihai Eminescu Lespezi). The SCA-Lab (Cognitive and Affective Sciences Laboratory) in Lille 3 University is an associated partner within this project. Participating together as a cross-border community which will equally and mutually train, exchange between schools and different educational systems, will primarily enhance and lead to share and collect ideas, approaches , methods and resources for a European school providing ‘success for all’. Thus, the different meetings of the trans-border project will help precise management and organization of mutual events such as short lasting staff training periods, which represents the application aspect of the process. Observation of good practices in schools abroad, meeting colleagues working in the field of education, comparing and putting ideas /practices to the test should allow teachers/schools to improve and reinforce methods of combating exclusion of pupils failing in the language used and taught in school. The results and impacts of GRIET are of course expected by and for the teaching and education staff but via their experience and commitment, they are also expected to be disseminated to the pedagogical and educational staff in the authority within the different educational and regional organizations. This resulting network should then be able and be ready to suggest and submit an application for GRIET 2 in which innovation from studies regarding ‘the language of children at school’ and ‘the language taught in class for children’ will generate interest in innovative intellectual output, which should be to the service of a more inclusive school.
The GRIET project (Transnational Group for Inclusive Education)is part of the program Erasmus+ as a Strategic partnership in the education sector for innovation and good practices. It aims to enable education staff to develop strategies for pupils with language difficulties, whether they are new comers and speak another language or they are native speakers with a difficulties in literacy. Those pupils have specific needs in order to develop language skills and to find better relationships and trust in schools. The partners in the project based their reflexion on European axes, like the principles edicted in the “Paris declaration” (March 2015) School staff from Romania, France and United-Kingdom have organized training meetings in order to turn questions into topics, to share and to lead job-shadowing. The team of the participants is diverse : teachers, pastoral staff, head teachers and head masters, supervisors and coordinators. The partnership involves : - for Romania : the Inspectorat of Bacau county and two schools, the Scoala Gimnaziala in Valea Seaca and the Scoala Gimnaziala Mihai Eminescu in Lespezi, those two schools are involved in the inclusion of children from the roma and the csango community - for United-Kingdom, the Leeds City Council and the Learning Improvement Team, who deals with coordination, counseling and training tasks for school staff, two primary schools, Hovingham primary school and Bankside primary school, as well as a secondary school, the Co-operative Academy, all of them are based in Leeds and most of their pupils are EAL (English as an additionnal language). - For France, the Rectorat of Lille, represented by the Dareic (International relations office), the GIP-FCIP who operated the budget management, the Casnav (Academic education center for new comers and travelers), UPE2A programs of Lille (school support for non-French speaker pupils) and a secondary school, the Collège Lamartine in Cambrai where French speaker pupils with special needs are trained into inclusive classes. The group first aimed to strengthen his approach of the education systems in the 3 countries and of the programs developed to support pupils with language difficulties : how the groups of pupils are made? How can specialized teacher give support ? What kind of jobs and skills can we find ? How are the rooms displayed ? How are the timetables organized? Then job-shadowing have led to identify and describe the different professional actions : providing visual documents to help communication, language skills exercises, real communication experiences, friendly and caring atmosphere with acknowledge of the progresses. Artistic activites have been suggested (theatre play, singing). The feed-back of the job-shadowing were completed by presentations of University researches on language skills. A greater awareness of the impact of the pupil’s everyday life led to question the links made with the families and the way to make this link even better. The impact on school attendance and on well being at school is tremendous. School attendance also depends on living standards. The GRIET group shared about the way to support families. Meetings were held with social workers to understand their activity and find the better way to work together. Those workers can be hired by schools, by public entities, by associations or by NGO’s. It makes harder to work together. During the two years of GRIET project, shareholders have discovered, described and re-used efficient methods. It is a huge issue to deal with “lexical learning in diverse contexts” and it is useful to deal with it with European partners.