School and family (S&F) is strategic partnership based on an educative innovation experience developed from 2/2016 to 6/2019 by Colegio Rural Agrupado Entretierras-Spain alongside the University of Murcia. The purpose of the activity was to increase the participation of the student’s families in certain school activities, therefore helping to improve the academic performance of the children and promote a sense of belonging within the school community. Now, through the development of an Erasmus+ project 2019-21 (KA229) scheduled for 24 months, the intention is to take advantage of the results of the aforementioned experience to transfer them to the European context. Therefore, the main objective of the project is to increase the democratic participation of students and families in school life, and consequently achieve greater social inclusion within the local community, country and Europe. Although the project focuses on social inclusion as a horizontal priority, it also aims to improve children's access to education and train families in high quality care for young children, and address issues such as early school leaving, gender equality and fairness in education. As well as this, the project seeks to modernise and internationalise the participating schools, share their cultural characteristics and create impact so that the results are beneficial for other schools on a local, national and European level. There are five primary schools participating in the project: Grundschule Herzogenaurach-Germany, Istituto Comprensivo Ada Negri-Italy, Pubiczna Szoła Postawowa nr 2 im. Jana Pawła 2-Poland, Bohrskolen-Denmark and C.R.A. Entretierras-Spain as the project coordinator. In this sense, the direct recipients will be approximately: 251 innovative teachers who are motivated to continue their training, 4837 students of varied ages and nationalities, and 3420 families of different socioeconomic status. Indirect participates are also considered to be universities, parents’ associations, local social organisations, city councils, educational authorities and the media. With regards to the profile of the participants, it is important to point out that they come from countries of different geographical locations, history, culture and educational systems; however they all share the same common concern of increasing cohesion among the members of their community, increase the feeling of belonging to the European Union and improving their teaching methods to cater for their diverse students. In order to achieve the aims of the project, a cooperative methodology is used which begins with teacher training through the exchange of good practices and multicultural educational innovations, based on selected topics in five transnational learning, teaching and training activities. Next, these experiences will be applied in twelve common local activities for the students and families of each partner school. Following this, all the activities will be evaluated by the participants and condensed into valuable results transferable to other educational centres throughout Europe. To guarantee adequate communication and dissemination of the programmed work, a virtual link is to be included through eTwinning, an initial transnational management meeting between the leaders of each country, six local coordination and training teacher meetings, a shared website, contact with local authorities, media, the publication of four digital newsletters that will document the results and the writing of two official evaluation reports (Mid-term and final) The expected results are: -Educational and cultural experiences. -Harmony of teachers with colleagues, families and students from other groups. -Increase in training and motivation of teachers who will then have a positive impact on their students. -Greater gender equality. -Prevention of absenteeism and early school leaving. -Acquisition of skills by families to enable them to educate. -School-family understanding. -Participation of students and families within school life. -Greater communication between members of the educational community. -Enrichment of the "European Development Plan" of the participating schools. -Transfer of the created materials through an international publication. Finally, the impact and expected long-term benefits relate to the acquisition of teaching skills to cooperate with the families of students in order to improve social inclusion and school performance, broadening the pedagogical and personal horizons of teachers through working alongside European colleagues, improvement of the social and civic competence of students through greater democratic participation, increase of their cultural background and feeling of belonging to the European Union, increase in the families’ trust in their school, improvement of school harmony, promotion and opening of the schools to the European dimension, and possible continuation of the project after the funding period.
School and family (S&F) is strategic partnership based on an educative innovation experience developed from 2/2016 to 6/2019 by Colegio Rural Agrupado Entretierras-Spain alongside the University of Murcia. The purpose of the activity was to increase the participation of the student’s families in several school activities, therefore helping to improve their children’s academic performance and promote a sense of belonging within the school community. Through the development of an Erasmus+ project 2019-21 (KA229) scheduled for 24 months (extended to 36), it has been tried to take advantage of the result of the aforementioned experience to transfer it to the European context. In this way, the main objective of the project has been to increase the democratic participation of all students and their families in school life, and consequently achieve greater social inclusion within their local community, their country and in Europe. Although the project has focused on social inclusion as a horizontal priority, it has also had the objectives of improving children's access to education, empowering families to care for their children and addressing early school leaving, gender equality and equity in education. In addition, the project has sought to modernize and internationalize the participating schools, share their cultural characteristics and create enough impact to ensure that the results obtained are beneficial for other schools in the local, national and European context of the participating educational centres. Finally, four primary schools have participated in the project: Istituto Comprehensive Ada Negri-Italy, Pubiczna Szoła Postawowa nr 2 im. Jana Pawła 2-Poland, Bohrskolen-Denmark and C.R.A. Entretierras-Spain (project coordinator). In this sense, the direct recipients have been approximately: 251 teachers, 4,837 students from 3 to 14 years of age and various nationalities, and 3,420 families of different socioeconomic and cultural levels. Indirect participants have also been the universities, parents' associations, local social organizations, town councils, educational administrations and the media in the region of each school participating in the project. Regarding the profile of the participants, it is important to point out that they come from countries with different geographical locations, history, culture and educational systems; however, they have all shared the same common concern of increasing cohesion among members of their community, increasing the feeling of belonging to the European Union, and improving their teaching methods to serve their diverse students. To achieve the objectives, a cooperative methodology has been followed that began in a preparatory visit in Spain to organize the management, distribution of tasks and evaluation of the project. Subsequently, four transnational learning, teaching and training activities were developed with teachers to exchange good practices and multicultural educational innovations linked to the programmed objectives. Then, these experiences materialized in 12 local activities that were carried out for the students and families of each collaborating school. Finally, all the activities were evaluated by the participants and documented in four newsletters that have been disseminated as they are transferable to other European schools. To ensure adequate communication between the participants and to disseminate the work carried out to the general public, eTwinning has been used since the beginning of the project, a website was created and a Twitter account of the association was opened. In addition, frequent contact has been maintained with local authorities and media that have helped to generate impact and disseminate our activities. The results obtained have been: -New educational and cultural experiences. -Harmony of the teaching staff with classmates, families and students. -Increased training and motivation of teachers, which has had a positive impact on their students. -Improvement in aspects that favor gender equality at school. -Prevention of absenteeism and early school leaving. -Acquisition of skills by families to better educate their children. -Greater understanding between school and families. -Increase in the participation of students and their families in school life. -Increased communication between members of the educational community. -Enrichment of the "European Development Plan" of the participating schools. -Possible transfer of activities and materials created through international publication. Finally, the expected long-term impact and benefits are related to the acquisition of teaching skills to cooperate with the students' families and thus improve their social inclusion and school performance. We also expect the progressive improvement of the social and civic competence of the students through greater democratic participation, the increase of their cultural baggage and the growth of their feeling of belonging to the European Union. The gradual increase in the confidence of families in their school will help improve school coexistence.