This project proposal for ‘Lifelong Mindfulness’ at its heart incorporates four different countries,four different schools but one common aim. This aim is centered around the MOT philosophy of developing and nurturing the youth of today for the future. Over a three year period all the partner schools are committed to understanding and developing this philosophy to the maximum through short term and long term mobilities. Our starting point will be upskilling and training for the leading teachers in each of the participating schools through a joint staff training event.This will take place in the MOT centre,Norway. With these new skills,the leading teachers will develop and disseminate this newly acquired knowledge to their institutions. We are applying for 336 mobilities,amongst these are 270 students and 66 teachers. We have developed a standard template to give coherence and consistency to the project mobilities. This follows a seven day mobility plan for easy implementation. Before, during and after these mobilities all participants will be actively involved through surveys,teamwork,visits and workshops. Day 1: - Introductory day / project day : Presentation of week’s program, ice-breaking games, MOT session , work in EU teams Day 2: - Project Day: Language workshop, project work, company visit Day 3/4: -Weekend in host families : cultural insight into the hosts’ life and culture, language/psychosocial skills Day 5 :-Sport and bonding day / cooking day : sports and activities,cooking activity Day 6:-Cultural day : cultural site /national park, interviews Day 7 :-Wrap up day : teamwork, presentation day for students, assessment and evaluation of mobility, teachers meeting Even though some participants may not get the opportunity to travel, they will still be active and benefit from the MOT sessions integrated in each partner school.The impact of the activities will be subject to regular evaluation,so as to ensure proper project implementation.The frequency of the evaluations will enable us to change any strategies that are obstructing our goals. The partner schools have vast experience in European projects.We aim to include participants from all social, cultural and religious backgrounds.Our wish is to promote gender balance,social inclusion and we are all agreed that we will ensure opportunities for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.This will certainly give opportunities that would heretofore have been unobtainable for these students.This program will give us the opportunity to air preconceived ideas so as to fight against discrimination of any type and its side effects.This is the power of the Erasmus+ program. Participants will be recruited based on their aptitude, enthusiasm and interest in pursuing this European collaboration with the enrolled schools. A thirst for ‘Lifelong Mindfulness’ and an interest in all things European will also be at the heart of the selection process with all eligible teachers asked to express an interest in the project before selection occurs.The joint staff training events will provide all staff with an insight into pedagogical practices,administration and management structures in the partner schools. After these events the staff involved in the mobilities will write reports and make presentations to their colleagues to impart the benefits accrued. We are confident that with the aid of the activities all participants will develop self-confidence, psychosocial skills as well as respect and care for others.Their self confidence will be boosted as a result of the activities.They will be required to address their peers,develop their critical minds and put forward their points of view because of their increased capacity to express themselves.They will develop and improve their psychosocial,language skills whilst working and communicating in teams abroad and at home,as well as when staying with host families. The MOT sessions will help them to manage their stress and emotions at school and in general,decreasing susceptibility to antisocial peer pressure.We expect this program will help the number of students dropping out, developing addictions, being bullied or in need of psychological counselling. Teachers of different courses and with different skills will help to prepare and complete the tasks that need to be done to reach the objectives of the project (e.g. language teachers, teachers in physical education, ICT teachers, teachers in science etc.). They will work on a wider range of topics in a European context requiring international cooperation.Teachers’ continued professional development will be enhanced by collaboration,active learning,the use of ICT that this project will require. This will result in greater inclusion, cross curricular education as well as cross cultural education.In the long term, our schools will continue to benefit from European integration,thus truly becoming European schools.
This project proposal for ‘Lifelong Mindfulness’ at its heart incorporated four different countries, four different schools but ONE common aim. This aim was centered around the MOT philosophy of developing and nurturing the youth of today for the future. Our starting point was in upskilling and training for the leading teachers in each of the participating schools through a joint staff training event. This took place in the MOT centre, Norway. With these newly acquired skills, the leading teachers developed and disseminated this knowledge to their institutions. The partner schools had a lot of experience in European projects. We aimed to include participants from all social, cultural and religious backgrounds and felt that we achieved this goal successfully. Another important aim we had was to promote gender balance and social inclusion by ensuring that we had all types of different students, with emphasis also placed on including students from lower socio-economic backgrounds in our project. Fighting against discrimination of any type was also a very important goal for us and one that we achieved through this Erasmus+ program. As well as student mobilities, our project also offered joint staff training events which provided all participating staff with an insight into pedagogical practices, administration and management structures in the partner schools. After these events the staff involved in the mobilities wrote reports and made presentations to their colleagues to impart the benefits accrued. Due to Covid restrictions with its consequential delays, the project stretched over a period of three and a half years, instead of the original three. During this whole period, all the partner schools were committed to understanding and developing this philosophy of nurturing and developing our youth’s wellbeing, thereby helping them to become robust teenagers with sound self-esteem. We felt that we achieved this for all our participating students, whether they took part in short-term mobilities or not. We also had three students who participated individually in long-term mobilities of two months, who benefitted tremendously from their stays particularly regarding their increased levels of confidence and self-esteem. We had originally wanted more students to take part in long-term mobilities, applying for eight such mobilities for Ireland, France and Norway. As it ended up, however, only one pupil from each country wanted to apply for such a mobility, so we therefore decided jointly to change these long-term mobilities to an extra short-term mobility to Brussels, which was extremely successful. For each short-term mobility visit, a set pattern was generally followed by each country which was as follows: Day 1: Introductory day / project day: Presentation of week’s program, ice-breaking games, MOT session, work in EU teams Day 2: Project Day: Language workshop, project work, company visit Day 3/4: Weekend in host families: cultural insight into the hosts’ life and culture, language/psychosocial skills Day 5: Sport and bonding day / Activity Day Day 6: Cultural day: cultural site /national park, interviews Day 7: Wrap up day: teamwork, presentation day for students, assessment and evaluation of mobility, teachers meeting For each visit, there was a different theme. In Ireland it was Food, Languages, Dance, Myths + Songs, in France it was Climate Challenges, in Norway IT @ school, Fake News, Social Media and My Mobile were the themes and in Greece it was Cultural Heritage. Our visit to Brussels lasted only 5 days and differed from this program slightly as there were no host families. Project work in international teams, however, was still completed by all the participating students with the theme of the EU – Past, Present and Future on the agenda. It is only true to say that, thanks to this Erasmus+ project – Lifelong Mindfulness – all four schools have seen much greater inclusion amongst their students, an improved cross curricular education as well as cross cultural education. In the long term, we are confident that our schools will continue to benefit from European integration, thus truly becoming European schools.