The Erasmus+ project "Facilitating Inclusion Through Sports” will be conducted in the partnership of 3 secondary schools from Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Our project aims at combating exclusion and obstacles our students face, and facilitating inclusion of disadvantaged participants through sports and physical activity, since it has been noted that that participation in sporting activities supports the process of inclusion in many ways: through bringing together individuals from different and various economic backgrounds, offering a sense of belonging to a bigger group, facilitating development of positive social behaviour, improving physical health and mental well-being among young people, as well as increasing community cohesion and active citizenship. With our project, we intend to help disadvantaged students with overcoming their exclusion through building their self-confidence and social skills, improving their self-development, promoting gender equality. We will promote and develop involvement in physical activity and physical competence among young people through encouraging and supporting students in their participation in sports activities and introducing them to framework of certain sports, learning the skills and strategies for them, as well as promoting involvement in casual or organised participation in sports by creating teams and obtaining results in competitions at all levels. Also the teachers involved in the project will learn good practices and innovative teaching and learning methods in the area of developing social inclusion with the use of physical education, and therefore will be able to implement them during various educational practices in their schools and extracurricular sporting activities. The project is designed for a two-year period during which we will cooperate both virtually and personally in order to achieve our objectives. In each partner school we will establish Sports Clubs which will work together using social networks, the internet, project website etc. The students and teachers will also have the opportunity to work together during 4 Learning/Teaching/Training events. During them, the participants will have an opportunity to work on the given subjects and to practice their foreign language and teamwork skills. The students and teachers’ work and studies in the given countries will focus on combating various kinds of exclusion and facilitating inclusion through sports such as rugby, floor hockey (as the first step to ice hockey), break dance and modern dance with elements of cheerleading. During the final LTT a large, international sporting event will be organised which will include tournaments of rugby and floor hockey between mixed international teams, accompanied by cheerleading performances. Spectators from other local schools, educational organizations, local authorities etc. will be invited, in the intermissions sports contests for spectators will be organised. There will also be 2 transnational project meetings for the coordinators and teachers held during the project duration. They will monitor the general schedule of the project, clarify and supervise the evaluation criteria for the implementation and assessment of the project, its final products and the contribution of the project to the students' social inclusion. The management team will also overview the course of all activities and the means of project dissemination. The project coordinators together with all the participating teachers will be in charge of the formal course of the project and the rest of tasks is completed by the students. With our project, we expect the following outcomes: A project website with all the information about the project and its results (e.g. lesson plans, posters, instructional videos etc.), a Sports Rulebook with chapters devoted to certain sports introduced to students in the project and a multilingual dictionary of vocabulary related to sports in question. Intangible results of the project will be, among others, acquiring by students personal and interpersonal social skills such as self-confidence, creating relationships with others, communication, motivation, creative thinking, improving their mental well-being and dealing with emotions, developing and improving their physical fitness and knowledge of sports. Thanks to this international cooperation students be given the opportunity and help to fight obstacles they face and to become socially included. They will obtain cross-cultural awareness and personal experience in the project areas, which will broaden their minds and abilities as well as their communication and language skills. The project will be beneficial not only for the students but also for the teaching staff. They will learn and share good practices, experience and knowledge with their peers from other countries. Throughout the whole project all the partners will stay in contact, providing each other with help and support.
It has been widely understood that participation in sporting activities supports the processes of inclusion among young people in many ways: through bringing together individuals from different and various economic backgrounds, offering them a sense of belonging to a bigger group, facilitating development of positive social behaviour and improving physical health and mental well-being. The project “Facilitating Inclusion Through Sports” was a partnership of 3 secondary schools from Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia, located in smaller towns in the least developed regions of their countries, areas directly affected by economic and demographical difficulties. The project aimed at combating exclusion and obstacles many of our students face (poor economic conditions, limited social skills, antisocial behaviour, poor academic performance, health problems, discrimination, cultural differences etc.), and facilitating inclusion and equal opportunities for disadvantaged participants through sports and physical activity. In order to achieve our objectives we organised 4 LTT events: 3 short-term exchanges of groups of pupils: in Slovakia (01.2018 – Everyone Can Play - Floor Hockey!), Bulgaria (11.2018 – Everyone Can Do It - Cheerleading and modern dance!) and Poland (03.2019 – Everyone Can Play – Rugby!), during which we introduced our students (aged 14-19, predominantly those facing various types of exclusions, obstacles and disadvantages) to frameworks of the sports, developed and practiced their sports and social skills, promoted teamwork and physical activity in general, encouraged and supported participants in their involvement in sports activities, showed them sports as a way of overcoming obstacles. During the final LTT event in Poland we organized a large, international sporting event with performances of project sports and trainings, and competitions for invited spectators – students and teachers from other local schools, educational organizations, local authorities etc.We also organized 1 short-term joint staff training event in Poland (06.2018), to introduce teachers to new methods and good practices of working with disadvantaged students and fighting different types of exclusion, as well as to familiarize them with new sports and using modern technologies on P.E. lessons, thus improving their professional workshop. There were also 2 Transnational Project Meetings (10.2017, Slovakia and 06.2019, Bulgaria) for project coordinators to monitor and manage project’s overall implementation. Between LTT events, to disseminate the project and its results, FITS participants, associated in FITS Clubs, conducted training sessions and workshops in project sports for their peers from partner schools not participating directly in LTT events, as well as students and teachers from other local schools and organizations. Partner schools organized new and joined already existing events (FITS/Sports days, open days, fairs etc.) to promote and disseminate project and its results among school and local communities. Altogether we organized at least 23 such events, reaching at least 2450 people. The tangible results of the project were: A digital Sports Guidebook devoted to project sports, lesson plans on project topics, presentations, posters etc. Partner schools also created previously non-existent teams in project sports that will function in schools long-term. As evidenced by our impact assessment, the project helped our students overcome their exclusions through building their self-confidence, social and personal skills, improving their self-development, fostering economic and gender equality (providing all participants with the same equipment and kits, creating co-educational teams in all project sports). We promoted and developed involvement in physical activity and physical competence among young people through encouraging and supporting students in their participation in sports activities and introducing them to framework of 3 – mostly new to them - project sports. Through international cooperation we also raised students’ and teachers’ cultural awareness and improved their English language skills. The teachers involved in the project also acquired good practices and innovative teaching methods in the area of developing social inclusion with the use of physical education and helping their students develop their interpersonal communication, assertiveness, ability to cooperate in a group, motivation and other social competences. They shared the learning and teaching knowledge and experiences and created teaching materials and methods that were used not only during project activities, but also added to schools’ educational practices. All the partner schools started and/or strengthened cooperation with various stakeholders: other local schools, various sports associations and experts, local and regional policy makers, media representatives, etc., who became actively involved in the project.