BEWATER Project has a transnational character by promoting a transdisciplinary discipline through aquatic interventions with students with intellectual disability, via curricular learning processes, collaborating with 3 partners with high level of professionalism in inclusive education and alternative learning methods experience. We have at our disposal aquatic facilities to develop this methodology which will be enriched with actions and intellectual products development. It could be employed in to a great number of European institutions and beneficiaries to meet learning problems, being a motivational an innovative proposal for students with intellectual disability. Objectives: To develop a transdisciplinary methodology with educational activities in the aquatic media, improving the students with intellectual disability´s learning process, as well as improving his/her self-government and life quality with an alternative method, in the aquatic media. It a tool which responds to diversity reaching in an alternative medium achievement in the learning process, thanks to the physical properties of the water, which enable movements, making them feel more free, relaxed, experiencing sensations and being aware with significant activities. Guides, manuals, protocols and formation are the main lines to develop to reinforce the development of the Educational Community, implementing the transdisciplinary methodology. Participants: 70 students with intellectual disability, pluridefficiency, serious development disorders, serious health problems, mental disorders, behavioural problems and/or language disorders and epilepsy with range ages between 3 and 21 years; professionals and families from the 3 special educational school´s partners, which will participate in this project (CCEE Instituto San José, España; Escola 1º ciclo CRPSF, Portugal y de Irlanda dos Colegios “Islandbridge Special School” y “Saint John of God Community Services Liffery Services Day Service). Activities: Three transnational meetings, 4 innovative and intellectual products, entertainment and educational activities offered to professionals and families, to validate and implement in the centers. Developing one combined mobility activity between students and professionals, develop 3 multipliers events (one in each country) inviting authorities, associations, educational entities and companies to presents results and project proofs. During the implementation phase, the students will participate in the aquatic sessions developing educational competencies to reinforce their acquired skills and abilities. Methodology: Disabled people need a holistic approach, and so we will develop an innovative transdisciplinary methodology versus a conventional approach, reaching common and shared objectives with families and students, offering responses to the educational and bio-psycho-social aspects. It is an initiative that brings interventions and knowledge in an alternative space through the design of a guide manual as the basis of multidisciplinary and theoretical/practical knowledge; with guiding documents for the basic process of aquatic intervention, generating precise information which allows to identify, in a reliable way, the strategic lines to intervene with the students, obtaining a greater scholar performance, though aquatic intervention. Disseminate the experience via multimedia and technical support for all the European Educational Communities which want to use pioneer spaces and resources as an educational tool and for families, guides with protocols and standards for a basic intervention process in the aquatic media. Results, Benefits and Impacts: Intellectual Outputs (Guides, Manuals, Protocols, Learning Web, Tutorial videos and TIC) will reflect an innovative pedagogical approach that will complement the traditional learning of the classrooms. The project will improve the participants’ life quality and their families, in every aspect, no just educational, as it will be implemented as a complementary and avant-garde educational program. The expected impact is to improve and increase pedagogic solutions, as well as the student´s teaching learning processes via the aquatic media. Being a paradigmatic methodology change in the disabled area. The transdisciplinary aspect will produce a benefit of the student, improving in the curricular areas, generalizing leanings in an attractive and motivational environment. The project will continue afterwards and will reinforce the cooperation between the partner organizations. In a political level, the results will feed the new local policies development, national and European. The project will reinforce a transformative pedagogical perspective which will benefit the needs and aspirations of the intellectual disabled students. Via BEWATER, this European Project aims to become a hope declaration and a chance of disabled students in an inclusive world.
To develop actions to improve the well-being and quality of life of students with ID and drug-resistant epilepsy and severe behavioural disorders through interventions in the aquatic environment that influence learning and functional capacity in order to optimise their relationship with and participation in the environment. To define physiological body functions of the pupils in order to improve and develop them and to avoid that the deficit may derive in other deficiencies. Improve their body structures, derived from the functional state of the pupil in terms of the anatomical parts of their body, such as organs, limbs and their components. Respond through the intervention in the aquatic environment to the participation in a vital situation and performance of different activities by the student, providing him/her with tools for his/her performance, realisation and capacity to execute the task or action. Identify environmental factors that influence the levels of activity and participation, and that condition their state of health in order to modify or facilitate support for social participation, eliminating barriers and obstacles, both physical and attitudinal.
The need for intervention in an alternative environment was assessed with the aim of improving the well-being of the participants, in aspects such as function or quality of life, providing benefits on aspects related to the body, through body functions and structures, or through the improvement in their activities and participation, from an individual and social perspective. Including aquatic activity in the pupils' curricular project allows us to complement teaching and therapeutic interventions in order to achieve the objectives set at the beginning of each school year. Aquatic intervention is a good proposal to interact and participate in the child's own activities, providing the same possibilities and rights to children with disabilities as to the rest, throughout their learning process.