On one hand young pupils entering the secondary school system have to face lots of challenges: understand and integrate a new organisation, get acquainted with a new group of pupils, manage an increasing amount of work and homework, select specific subjects or orientation which will have an impact on their future learning path and future life, etc. On top of that, lots of them have already repeated a year or were oriented by the school to another learning path (general education to vocational education). This might lead to demotivation, diminish the wish to learn and contribute to school drop-out. To help them towards this sensitive school period, the school community should better provide them with spaces, tools and possibilities to express their problems and discuss solutions in order to help them acquire self-confidence in their capacity of learning and tackling these issues. They need to be heard and better guided. On the other hand, oldest pupils are in need of being given small scale projects to be managed in order to develop their transversal skills which are essential to enter higher education or labour market: decision-making, teamwork, openness, self-motivation, self-discipline, group management, etc. In our schools, these pupils have the experience of what a young pupil might face when entering a secondary school and share his/her experience with youngest. The main objective of this project is to merge both needs by implementing a tutoring programme within our schools. Tutoring is a mutual assistance relationship based on cooperation. It’s a peer-to-peer relationship for mutual progression in a learning area. The tutor isn’t a professional of the educational system but can bring a pedagogical support to 1 or several tutees. The tutor can help the tutee in 3 different areas: studies, self-confidence and orientation. The initiative has the advantage to be mutual as the tutee benefits from the competencies of the tutor and the latter develop pedagogical and interpersonal skills. We plan to develop a tutoring programme with a common reflection and exchange of ideas among partners, including an active participation of both teachers and pupils. We plan to organise 4 transnational meetings to develop the tutoring programme within our school, develop a common framework to implement it and share ideas, experiences and difficulties on the subject.
This project was born in 2019 from an observation: many students in Belgium, aged 13-14, sometimes younger or older, face great difficulties when they enter secondary school. Difficulties of integration, motivation and related to their working method: the causes for dropping out of school are multiple and emphasized when the student comes from an underprivileged socio-economic background. We therefore decided to set up a system of coaching between peers, which means that we recruited pupils aged 17-18 who were ready to help and coach younger people in need. We then extended this coaching partnership to three other countries: Spain, Italy and Hungary. We first organized a kick-off meeting here, in Brussels, in October 2019, with only the project’s partner teachers and coordinators. We were able to talk among ourselves and develop an action plan to put in place at our schools: how to pair up the coaching duos and how to get their collaboration started. It seemed very important for us to get to know each other before the real launch of the project, and this kick-off meeting was a great success. When we each returned to our schools, we implemented what had been decided, while remaining in communication with the other partners. In Brussels, we started by visiting all final years’ classes (17–18-year-old pupils), as well as mid-school classes (13-14-year-old pupils), to recruit volunteers and explain the project. Then, we organized a pairing activity, in a similar way a speed-dating works: a quick meeting to see if a connection or common points emerged from the exchanges. The students had to write down their comments and impressions next to the photo of the person they had met, and then establish their ranking, their “top 3”. That’s how the coordination team created the pairs, which began their journey together. They saw each other based on their needs and their availability, sometimes every week, sometimes less. They discussed motivation, orientation, working method and integration into the school, for example. The coaches attended workshops to be able to help their “godchildren” plan their work, before an exam session for example, and received tools such as standardized “interview sheets” which helped them ask the youngest to identify their strengths, as well as their weaknesses that had to be worked on. Throughout the project, the coaches filled in a “coaching diary”. Referent teachers, in addition to the project coordinating team, followed these “diaries”, supervised the pairs, followed them up and helped them in case of problems. Sometimes, the coaching stopped, because the “godchild” was not interested or motivated to invest time in this project anymore. He was then "replaced" by another volunteer student. When there were not enough coaches, two “trainees” were assigned to one single coach. At the end of these three years of coaching (the project was extended by a year due to Covid - we were indeed slowed down a lot and even sometimes paralyzed), the results were very positive. All the pairs did not work the same way and had to reinvent themselves during Covid, where they did their best to keep the connection from a distance, but overall, the pairing was successful. It even happened that a “godchild” later became a coach. Alongside this internal project, the European dimension was very rich. We had the chance to go to Italy, Spain, and Hungary, to our partners, each time with a group of student coaches, before welcoming everyone here for the end of the project in May 2022. During the mobilities, we were confronted to other education systems, and were able to get inspiration from the positive sides, as well as exchange many tools and processes, in a constant enthusiasm for sharing ideas. We were immersed in classes and, more generally, in the culture of the host country. The exchanges were numerous, intercultural, and the European identity and feeling of belonging really became meaningful for our students. To sum up, both at the level of the internal project and in its European dimension, this exchange was a real success, for the students as well as for the coordinators.