Only when children feel safe and secure can they engage in new things, discover the world, learn and develop. All people feel safe and secure when they experience stable bonds and secure relationships. It is therefore necessary to strengthen relationships and ties where they are not sufficiently secure and stable. Only in this way can the basic prerequisites for sustainable and successful school learning be established. Four special needs schools and one mainstream school from four European countries (Germany, England, Romania, Bulgaria) are facing up to this challenge. Due to different disabilities and additional needs, unfavourable family conditions, traumatic experiences or biographical breaks, their pupils require special support in establishing, shaping and maintaining relationships. The participating schools have set themselves the goal of exchanging information on building blocks of relationship offerings in the school as a living space, developing these further for their own pedagogical-professional system and implementing them there with long-term structural support. Since the participants are aware that the relationship work at school must go beyond the pure teacher-pupil relationship if a sustainable, trusting environment is to be created for the pupils, they will work on the following aspects of school relationship in the course of the project: Teacher-pupil relationships, pupil-pupil relationships, teacher-parent relationships, relationships between employees and strengthening the school community. In this way, the participating schools want to create a basis that enables their socially disadvantaged pupils to open up to educational offers, to discover and exploit their learning potential and to complete their schooling as successfully as possible. To this end, the participants will come together within the framework of learning, teaching and training activities to exchange best practice examples from the individual schools, discuss them and either try them out in their own schools or change them, develop them further or use a partial aspect as an impulse for their own ideas. The main aspect of participation in this project of pupils, parents and also significantly more colleagues than can travel to the learning, teaching and training activities is the work between the meetings. This will look very different according to the different aspects. The spectrum ranges from therapeutic settings to group-dynamic processes and teaching activities to the organisation of extracurricular activities, whereby all offers are examined with regard to their effectiveness in building sustainable relationships. The participants will carefully evaluate this work at their own school with the pupils, parents and staff, share their experiences with the other participants and compile them in the form of the brochure "All together". Each school will enter into a school development process and incorporate elements that have proven to be feasible and effective into its respective school programme. A blog and a designed TwinSpace will present the project fully and in detail, making it accessible to the general public. The topic of the project makes a long-term continuation of work imperative, since relationship building is nothing that can be possible as a temporary measure or can be successful in the short term. Responsible interaction with the students entrusted to us includes continuing the process started during the project even after the end of the active project time. This will happen all the more since the desired anchoring of the elements of relationship work in the respective school programme entails a commitment to which all current and future employees of the schools must feel committed. In addition, the schools will share their wealth of experience and professional knowledge with schools in local and regional networks where they are already active and with professors and students from local universities, so that the results of this project will be made available to a wide professional public. Finally, it should be mentioned that this project also enables relations on a completely different level. The exchange over more than two years contributes considerably to developing openness and tolerance towards other cultures, to being inspired by them and to forming friendships beyond national borders. Thus "All together" reaches the participants on a very personal level and will lead them to pass on this feeling of European togetherness to the next generation.
Only when children feel safe and secure they can engage with new things, discover the world, learn and develop. People feel safe and secure when they experience stable bonds and secure relationships. It is therefore necessary to strengthen relationships and bonds where they are not sufficiently secure and stable. This is the only way to create the basic conditions for sustainable successful learning at school. Four special schools and one mainstream school from four European countries (Germany, England, Romania, Bulgaria), whose students need special support in establishing, shaping and maintaining relationships due to different disabilities and disorders, unfavorable family conditions, traumatic experiences or biographical breaks, took up this challenge. The participating schools have exchanged ideas about the building blocks of relationship programs in the school environment, developed them professionally for their own systems and started to implement them with long-term structural support. Since the participants were aware that relationship work at school must extend beyond the pure teacher-student relationship for creating a sustainable, trusting environment for the pupils, they worked on the following aspects of school relationships in the course of the project: Teacher-Pupil Relationships, Pupil-Pupil Relationships, Teacher-Parent Relationships, Staff Relationships, and Strengthening the School Community. In this way, the participating schools have created a foundation that enables their socially disadvantaged students to open up to educational opportunities, to discover and realize their learning potential in a better way and to complete school as successfully as possible. To this end, the participants came together in learning, teaching, and training activities and shared best practices from individual schools. They have been inspired by these for their own work and have implemented the ideas in adapted form in their own pedagogical activities. The main aspect of participation in this project by pupils, parents and also significantly more colleagues than could travel to the learning, teaching and training activities took place in the work between the meetings. This looked different according to the different aspects. The spectrum ranged from therapeutic settings to group dynamic processes and classroom activities to extracurricular activities, with all offerings being examined for their effectiveness in terms of building sustainable relationships. Participants carefully evaluated this work at their own school in the form of presentations, through which they also shared their experiences with other participants. Many activities were compiled and made available to a wide audience in the "All together" brochure and blog: https://all-together-blog.eu/. Each school entered into a school development process and incorporated elements that proved feasible and effective into their respective school programmes. The theme of the project makes it imperative to continue working in the long term, as relationship building is not something that can be done as a temporary measure or be successful in the short term. Responsible treatment of the pupils entrusted to us includes continuing the process started during the project even after the active project period has ended. This will happen even more now, since the anchoring of the elements of relationship work in the respective school programme has started. All current and future school staff must feel committed to the school programme. In addition, the schools have begun to share their expanded experience and the professional insights gained from it with schools in local and regional networks and with local universities, so that the results of this project are made available to a broad professional public. Finally, it should be mentioned that this project also enabled relationships on a completely different level. The exchange over three years contributed significantly to developing openness and tolerance towards other cultures, to being inspired by them and to making friends across national borders. During the period of isolation, the project participants succeeded in strengthening each other's backs. In this way, "All together" also reached the participants on a very personal level and can lead them to pass on this feeling of European togetherness to the next generation.