Context We are five schools across Europe which are united under the same purpose – that of providing an international context for our students to acquire new skills, develop their creativity and improve their motivation and interest in the school. Through this project, we want to learn from each other and develop a common plan to tackle early school leaving by increasing the extracurricular offer of our school. We are confident that we will manage to motivate students to get involved, as this is a good opportunity for them to reach out to the world, create new bonds and open their minds to different cultures. Each of the five partner schools will act as a teacher for other schools in terms of implementing after-school clubs for students – Poland will show the other partners the results and methodology of the photography club, Greece will provide a model of Environmental club. Bulgaria has expertise in running an ICT club, Turkey a drama club and Lithuania a robotics club. Besides these, each meeting will focus on a certain aspect of ESL and way of combating it - developıng students’ sense of securıty and self-esteem; strengthenıng ıdentıty ın chıldren; developing the sense of purpose; building feelings of personal competence; communicating effectively with parents and setting up an action plan. Objectives We have started this collaboration, having in mind the following objectives: 1. To improve students’ motivation 2. To reduce the phenomenon of early school leaving among students 3. To work out a common programme for combating ESL in the long run 4. To improve the schools’ extracurricular activities offer 5. To enable acquisition of key skills for the 21st century learner – ICT, digital competence, team work, communication, social skills 6. To develop students’ creativity 7. To enable the intercultural exchange and to foster intercultural dialogue for students and teachers Participants The overall target groups are students aged 13-14 in our schools, approximately 300 students. Also, teachers in our schools (about 150). The exchanges involve the participation of about 100 students and 40 accompanying teacher mobilities. These 100 students are part of our target group of students aged 13-14, who will go through a selection process based on their manifested interest, motivation and social background. Activities The first LTTA is organized in Poland. Teachers and students attend this meeting. Teachers will take part in discussions and round tables on the above issues, students will be involved in workshops about photography and will be assigned tasks on the topic. The coordinator, Poland, is to organize lectures for teachers on developıng students’ sense of securıty and self-esteem, after which they will run workshops on the same topic with teachers and students. In the same way, we will organise LTTA 2 in Greece, where teachers attend lectures on strengthenıng ıdentıty ın chıldren. Students atttend workshops on this topic, as well as on environmental education. LTTA3 will be organised in Bulgaria, on the topics - developing the sense of purpose and ICT club activities. LTTA 4 is organised in Turkey on the topic of building feelings of personal competence and drama club activities. Finally, LTTA 5, organised in Lithuania, will focus on communicating effectively with parents and setting up an action plan, as well as initiation in robotics. Results Workshops, lectures and support materials, meeting reports with descriptions of activities and conclusions, methodologies for implementing after-school clubs on each topic, exchanged practices, certificates of attendance, pictures taken by students, pictures of activities, videos, articles, presentations, interviews, pictures, Twinspace, Facebook page and website. Impact In the short run, we aim to improve the human resources and their flexibility in organizing after-school clubs. We will implement clubs that we observe in the partner countries beginning with the second project year. In this way, we will make students more motivated and involved, by addressing students who have an interest in the topic and trying to attract others as well. The schools will either create or maintain their positive image at the local level, as well as at European level. We will encourage other schools in our regions to cooperate with European schools under Erasmus+. In the long-term, schools will improve their non-formal education offer, by setting up after-school clubs on at least some of the topics we will learn about during the LTTAs. As well as this, and perhaps more important than anything else, we will use the results obtained throughout the projects to address the issue of ESL and implement the action plan we will have designed together.
Our project was started through the partnership of 5 countries with the ambition to provide an international context for our students to acquire new skills, develop their creativity and improve their motivation and interest in the school. Considering diverse changes observed on both our and our partner schools' students and teachers, and the decrease in ESL (Early School Leaving), it can be safely said that the project plan was followed thoroughly. The activities developed within the project were interesting and challenging for all partner schools. The methodologies of running the after-school clubs, which shown during LTTAs, were inspiring and encouraging. The partners were also in a permanent search to find new methods of teaching-learning skills in an interdisciplinary manner as well as how to motivate students for learning, taking active part in the activities and support them in terms of strengthening their self-esteem, sense of purpose, self-identity and personal competence. To equip the teachers and students with knowledge on the latter issues, numerous lectures and workshops were carried out during LTTAs and the observed practices were implemented in each of the partner school. All actions and activities planned and conducted during the project, led to work out a common program for combating ESL, as was one of our priorities. Our main project’s objectives were improving students’ motivation, reducing the phenomenon of early school leaving among students, working out a common program for combating ESL, improving the school’s extracurricular activities offer, enabling acquisition of key skills for the 21st century learner, developing students’ creativity and enabling the intercultural exchange fostering intercultural dialogue for students and teachers. Students, aged 13 -14 (in some schools even as young as 9 years old), involved in the project, carried out activities in their after-school clubs as well as at workshops at LTTAs where they developed their language skills, creativity, team work, social and ICT skills. They were also involved in dissemination activities preparing presentations and talking studios about participation in mobilities. They created posters, games, recorded greetings and songs on special occasions like Christmas, European Day of Languages and Erasmus Days. They reflected upon their participation in the Erasmus+ project through a questionnaire carried out in the Socrative program and during an online meeting with their peers from other partner schools. They also checked their knowledge of the partner countries in a Kahoot quiz and created their own games in Scratch. Through observations made during LTTAs teachers applied new methodologies, technologies and approaches to improve their teaching and lessons. They exchanged good practices and planned activities based on what they learnt, later sharing the results with other partners and members of the school community. School's staff has been asked to participate in the activities that children developed. School staff was really worthy because they helped teachers in administrative issues.We have involved parents and we asked for their active participation because as members of our educational communities they are really worthy. Local institutions and neighbouring schools were informed about the project, activities and results in order to consider them in future educational actions in town. The results that we obtained during the project were the following: methodologies for implementing after-school clubs (photography, drama, ICT and Environmental Education clubs), workshops, lectures and support materials on strengthening students’ self-esteem, self-identity, sense of purpose and personal competence, exchanged practices, certificates of attendance, pictures taken by students, pictures of activities, videos, articles, presentations, a calendar, bookmarks, a common program for combating ESL in the long run, Twinspace, Facebook page and project website. The project has had a significant impact on our students. Through their active participation in the activities in after-school clubs they became more involved and motivated for learning and their language skills, social skills and ability to work in teams have greatly improved. They’ve also broadened their knowledge about other countries and were able to break national or religious stereotypes. All the activities created within the project have made meaningful changes in students' lives, especially those with special needs or fewer opportunities, often at risk of dropping out. The project has had a great impact on the image and perception of the schools in their local communities and regions and served as an encouragement and inspiration for those schools which would like to consider participation in the program. The results obtained throughout the project to address the issue of ESL and the program we created to combat the dropout will help our schools in the long run.