The changing political context (immigrants' flows, different nationalities, religions, cultural and linguistic differences, social exclusion) pose the problems of the inclusion of children from socially vulnerable groups. Every school participating in this project face problems such as school non-attendance, early school leaving, lack of learning motivation. The goal of the project „Music is a common language“ is to increase the possibilities of inclusion of children from socially vulnerable groups in the educational process. In order to achieve this, teachers who are faced with many challenges in these schools, need to learn new teaching methods so that the education process would be more inclusive, friendly and attractive. The project focuses on the methods of teaching music that are used in working with primary school students. All these techniques are directed towards the development of a friendly, emotionally stable environment and a comprehensive development of a child. During the workshops, conferences, online meetings, open classes and concerts teachers will get acquainted with different music teaching methods and apply them in their schools, will evaluate their usefulness, advantages and disadvantages, adaptability in different learning environments. The meetings throughout the project and conducted surveys of target group children will allow teachers to monitor, compare and evaluate how successfully the project is developing, how effective it is and what influence it has on psychological and emotional state of children from socially vulnerable groups. Although the number of teachers directly involved in the project is not high (18 teachers from 3 countries), we hope that the dissemination during and after the project will reach every student (about 1500 altogether), colleague, parent and school community member. With the help of social media, the results of the project will be publicized internationally (Schools’ websites/ Facebook/YouTube/Instagram). We hope that the knowledge and competences acquired during the workshops, conferences, open classes and international meetings with colleagues will enable the teachers to create an attractive, friendly and exciting educational process which improves the inclusion of children from socially vulnerable groups and reduce the percentage of school non-attendance and early school leaving, boost their learning motivation, collaboration and communication. We expect to create the methodological publication, which will be placed in eTwinning, the School Education Gateway and the Erasmus + Project Results Platform and will provide an opportunity for anyone wishing to take advantage of good practices. The international cooperation during the project will help to establish new contacts with foreign educators and open up opportunities for future projects.
The changing political context (immigrants' flows, different nationalities, religions, cultural and linguistic differences, social exclusion) face the problems of the inclusion of children from socially vulnerable groups. Every school participating in this project encounters problems such as lack of learning motivation, inclusion into educational process, school non-attendance, early school leaving. The aim of the project „Music is a common language“ was to increase the possibilities of inclusion of children from socially vulnerable groups in the educational process. In order to achieve this, teachers who are faced with many challenges in these schools, learned new teaching methods so that the education process would be more inclusive, friendly and attractive. The project focused on the modern, interactive and inclusive music teaching and learning methods that are used in working with pre-school and primary school students. All these techniques were directed towards the development of a friendly, emotionally stable environment and a comprehensive development of a child. During the mobility visits, workshops, conferences, online meetings, open classes and concerts teachers got acquainted with different music teaching methods, tried and applied them in their schools, evaluated their usefulness, advantages and disadvantages, adaptability in different learning environments. The meetings throughout the project and conducted surveys of target group children, teachers and parents allowed to monitor, compare and evaluate how successfully the project was being developed, how effective it was and what influence it had on psychological and emotional state of children from socially vulnerable groups. Various, inclusive, modern music teaching / learning methods have expanded the variety of educational methods, forms and increased the opportunities for children with special needs to get involved in the educational process, improved their learning motivation and attendance. The educators participating in the project strengthened their subject, intercultural and foreign language competencies and prepared a methodological publication for music teachers and other practitioners, which contains all the useful information gathered during the project implementation about music teaching methods, lesson plans and activity descriptions, survey results and conclusions. Knowledge of European education systems and development of partnerships with foreign schools has strengthened the internationality, openness and competitiveness of the schools participating in the project. The dissemination activities carried out during the project made it possible to acquaint a large group of teachers form other schools and regional communities with the project activities and the results achieved. With the help of social media, the results of the project were publicized internationally (Project's Facebook/School websites/Facebooks/You Tube/eTwinning/Ugdymo sodas/Erasmus+ Project Results Platform). The knowledge and competences acquired during the project are going to have positive effect on the project involved schools: activities related to the project music teaching methods are included in further schools plans and short-term projects on inclusion of SEN students are going to be implemented. Developed school contacts encouraged schools to participate in other Erasmus+ projects related to SEN children inclusion in the educational process, establish and sustain contacts with national, foreign educators and share good practices.