Students with special needs (mental or cognitive retarded) are still suffering from discrimination in some european countries. Even if they take part of inclusive schooling in some countries, there is on one hand a lack of adequate competences of the personnel to promote them in an satisfactory way. On the other hand an employment on the first labour market is the exception. The opportunities of getting employed are rather low inspite of long term practical messures. In some countries the students with special needs have even no possibilities for working and the young grown-ups are sent back to the medical or nursing area. The school-following system for people with handicap seems to be inflexible and aligned on minimum costs. „Move on“ is an European school project aimed for teenagers with special needs. It will enable those teenagers to meet other teenagers and make friends with travelling in 5 European countries. With the 5 modules of „Move on“ in the respective host countries they will be stimulated and inspired in relation to their physical, mental, emotional, social and cognitive developement. The project creates an access for handicaped students to get to know foreign european countries, and to discovering answers to the question, what will follow after school. Previously arranged before the students mobilities, in every participating country will take place teacher mobilities giving encouragement for aspects of further education competences. On the level of the personnel will result an cooperative exchange with professional stimulations. In the project will participate 24 students with companions (teachers and parents) in Student mobilities and 6 teachers from Romania, Latvia, Spain, Italy and Germany in teacher mobilities. Language of the project is English, which is conveyed in easy vocabular and structured sentences for the students with handicap. The encounter of the students contain hospitation, participation of school- and dance activities, with the focal point on exercises for mindfulness, being offered as requirement for the own development and also for common activities. Cultural excursions and visits of institutions and organisations of the host country are part of the modules. The students will create a traveldiary. A guide for „Travelling foreign countries with handicaped students“ will be compiled for future generations of teachers as a supporting matter. The projekt will enable teenagers with special needs to meet other teenagers and make friends in common activities. The teachers are introduced in the modules of the project with trainings, and the mobilities give the opportunitiy for prepare the students travel together with confidence. The growing together of the teachers paves the way to a quick approach of the students, what will be connected with fun and joy to an European thinking. The project „Move on“ will show to all participants, furthermore to the schools and the local regions how profitably und successful European encounters can be even for students with special needs through a Erasmus+ school project.
In the teacher mobility, which took place in October 2019 in Dej/Romania, 10 teachers from the 5 partner schools met and got to know each other, exchanged information about the project goals and plans and organized the process of the first student mobility. The main topic in Romania was MOVE ON with therapy (mindfulness and therapy with animals). In this regard, 3 trainings (positive psychology, mindfulness training and animal assisted therapy) took place in Dej for the teachers. In November 2019, 24 students from the project schools participated in the trip to Romania. Speaking English as the project language, they tried to communicate and make friends with the support of teachers and mobile devices (cell phones, iPads). Every morning there was a mindfulness exercise led by the Spanish teacher and singing of the project song "MOVE ON" (composition of the Spanish school). The students participated in classes and class projects in different classes. Furthermore, cultural excursions took place, to the salt mine "Turda", to an animal farm and to the monastery of Nikola. The Romanian hosts organized a traditional evening during which numerous student encounters were possible. In mixed groups, project logos were designed by the students and one chosen to be printed on T-shirts. Mobilities were always evaluated by teachers in Skype conferences. The student mobilities were evaluated by the students in a final round. They described their positive impressions and their challenges. At the end of the digital closing activity, a teacher training session was held digitally, in which the project as a whole was evaluated in the exchange of all. All project activities were prepared and followed up in Skype conferences. Pupils and teachers from all project schools worked together on the eTwinning platform in the Twinspace of MOVE ON. A small Christmas Secret Santa project was carried out. Packages with local specialties and small Christmas gifts were sent to each other. In winter 2020, further travel plans had to be stopped due the Corona pandemic, and the partner schools decided to continue the MOVE ON project nevertheless with digital activities led by each partner school. Latvia (sports): In preparation for the project activity in Latvia, students designed various surveys and posters about their favourite sports and published this on eTwinning. On 4 days, 24 students from all 5 schools met to livestream the respective sports and quiz together (video conference with MSTeams). All of them wore the project T-shirt in their respective colour, so we got to know each school in its diversity. Spain (music/dance): the Spanish school created the MOVE ON song, which all the students in Romania already knew, sang daily and choreographed (gestures). The song was further developed by each school during lockdown/restricted school hours creating lyrics in their local language to the verse melody and singing them. The Spanish school put all the building blocks together into a video song and this was singing along by everyone in the digital activities over the course of the project. Italy (social participation/integration): Italy was hit hard by the pandemic in 2021 and had students at home for a long time. The teachers were in good exchange and described the hard times of crisis in their schools. Therefore, Italy took over the graphic design of the project: PPP and letterhead with project logo and design, design of the project logo and poster printing with project photos as a means of dissemination. Germany (vocational preparation): Finally, the 3-day digital project on "preparation for the world of work" from Germany took place. On the first day, all countries created a typical Bavarian snack in livestream (video conference). For this, a package of ingredients was sent to the schools, on the second day the students created a bird out of wood (sawing, filing, painting) in a joint videoconference and on the 3rd day there was a joint conclusion by sending gas-filled project balloons with postcards as a reminder to the partner countries. The whole project was accompanied by the weekly Erasmus lessons where students learned simple English and were prepared for the project activities and country trips. The geographical location of all participating countries was elaborated and their specific peculiarities. As a project result/memory, a European menu was created in a recipe book, in which each partner school entered a dish of its country for re-cooking. This can also be viewed digitally on eTwinning.