Reducing early school leaving is an important European goal and of benefit to all pupils, teachers, parents and communities. One in ten young Europeans leave education or training without having the skills and qualifications which are now considered necessary for a successful transition to the labour market and for active participation in today’s society, meaning they risk unemployment, social exclusion and poverty. Objectives: -to cooperate to create and provide relevant, engaging activities that will motivate all students, including those with fewer opportunities, taking into account each student's ability, ambition and capacity to fully develop their strengths and talents, to develop their sense of belonging and basic skills and competences in languages, science, cultural awareness, learning to learn, sense of initiative, social and civic competences, to increase attendance rates of students -to provide opportunities for students to connect school and out-of-school life experiences, through monthly outdoor activities -to strengthen cross-sectorial cooperation with youth associations, NGOs, university students, parents, local authorities and communities to have a wider range of expertise and good practices in implementing the activities and presenting real life role models for students, with whom they can identify themselves -to enhance cooperation among teachers at European level to identify together different learning styles, according to students' needs, to adopt inclusive and student-focused methods, to create activities dealing with diversity in terms of the social and ethnic background of students as well as supporting individuals with special learning needs and learning disabilities, to share preventing and intervention measures taken at national level -to spread our results beyond our partnership, to create a book with at least 5 outdoor activities for every school subject, to be a useful tool for teachers all over Europe who face the same problems in their schools. The primary target group are students with fewer opportunities, aged 10-15, but all students of this age group will be integrated in the activities of the project to create a sense of belonging and empowerment for all students. Our project will involve students with learning difficulties, discipline problems, disabilities, low attendance at school, low motivation for learning, migrants, refugees, institutionalized students. We believe that with active, engaging, motivating outdoor activities and by involving students with fewer opportunities in a European project, where they can meet new cultures, make new friends, learn a language in real life situation, connecting the experience of learning different school subjects with an outdoor setting, can contribute to the positive change in students' behaviour and attitude towards school and learning. In designing and implementing the outdoor activities we will collaborate with other stakeholders (local communities, NGOs, university professors/students, youth associations, scouts, parents). At Transnational Project Meetings we will decide together on school subjects for each month. Each school will be responsible to implement an outdoor activity on the chosen subject. At the end of the month with outdoor activity, teachers will complete an observational report according to a template we will decide on the first transnational project meeting (e.g. school, country, stakeholders involved, no. of students, time, aims, description of the activity, problems occurred, observational notes, photos attached). In this way we will have 5 activities with descriptions for each school subject. All these activities will be gathered and published as a book at the end of the project, so that our results can be exploited by other European schools, too. We will produce a book with all the outdoor activities included implemented during the lifetime of the project. A digital version will be sent to all schools in our region by email. The eBook will remain available to be viewed and downloaded on our website, on eTwinning page and on SaltoYouth Toolbox. The printed versions will be available in our schools' libraries, our towns' libraries and be one copy will be distributed to each local school. Expected impact on learners: -increased motivation towards learning and higher attendance at school, self-confidence, sense of accomplishment and satisfaction -increased social and interpersonal skills, reduction in violence and aggressiveness among students, developing friendships and feelings of solidarity with others, working in multicultural teams -developing effective communication skills, self-awareness, cultural knowledge, openness, flexibility, promotion of tolerance and of appreciation of different beliefs, cultures and backgrounds, more open and confident when communicating with people from other cultures -to have broadened and deepened knowledge about other countries -motivation to study foreign languages
The pedagogical approach of our project was outdoor education. All partners schools had problems with absenteeism, low attendance, lack of interest in school activities and learning. That is the reason we have chosen outdoor education, as studies have found that children who don't necessarily thrive in a traditional classroom (including students with ADHD) are more engaged and successful when they're learning in a curriculum-based, outdoor environment. The objectives of our project were to lower absenteeism of students, which we managed to do by offering engaging outdoor activities, where students could connect their school experiences with the real life outdoor setting and feel secure and included. There were 5 partners: 1. Liceul Tehnologic "Octavian Goga" Jibou has 650 pupils aged between 6 and 18 years and 60 teachers. It has primary, secondary and technical / vocational education. The school offers education in the minority language, Hungarian, to pupils, aged 6-14 and to the children who live in the child care centre next to our school. These students are abandoned or orphan children, or whose parents are gone abroad working for a better living. 2. The Comprehensive Institute Laura Lanza lies within one of the newest districts in Carini, a disadvataged area for social-economic aspects. The school has about 1200 students and 110 teachers. 3. The E.E.G. of Agios Dimitrios is a public, vocational lower secondary school for children with special educational needs in a northern suburb of Athens . Τhe duration of studies until graduation is 4 years. The school has 34 teachers, 3 psychologists, a social worker, two assistants and 180 students. Their learning disabilities arise from different causes such as borderline intelligence and/or mild mental retardation, Attention Deficit Disorder and Hyperactivity (ADHD), Autistic Spectrum Disorders and neurological problems. 4. ES Madina Mayurqa is a state secondary school that offers both compulsory and post-compulsory secondary education. It has around 700 students, aged between 12 and 18 years old. There are around 70 teachers working at the school. They have students with learning needs in all of the secondary groups, and around 10% of the students are immigrants from different parts of the world, but especially from Eastern Europe, North Africa, China and South America. 5. The Dr. Horácio Bento Gouveia School is located in the urban area of Funchal and started activity 30 years ago. The school was totally rebuilt 8 years ago and has over 200 teachers and 1600 students, 10 to 16 years old. They also have a special unit that works with handicapped children and students with special needs of all sorts. During the 2-year-project, we had eTwinning activities on Twinspace, logo contest, dissemination events, online questionnaires, 3 Transnational Project Meetings, 3 Learning, Teaching, Training Activities and 8 outdoor lessons at: Geography, Science, Art, Maths, Literature, History, Foreign Language and Civics Education. All 40 outdoor lesson plans can be viewed on our Twinspace, website and Facebook page. Our tangible final result is the book "Outdoor Learning - Real Learning!", which contains all the 40 lesson plans of the outdoor activities that we implemented during the project.The project's result have an open access, they are public and free. The project's results will remain available and be used by others on: -public Twinspace pages: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/45380/pages/page/273273- -public official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/outdoorlearningerasmus/ -official website: https://outdoorlearningweb.wordpress.com/ -online book: https://issuu.com/nagymelinda/docs/final_outdoor_book-converted We will continue to organize more outdoor lessons, probably on a smaller scale, lacking the funds, but with the same great educational purposes, interest and enthusiasm. These activities will continue to be published on the official Facebook page of the project and on the school Facebook page as we have done so far. We will implement our partners' outdoor lessons, whenever it is possible.