In our schools today, students' social inclusion is a great need especially for those who are socially excluded for different reasons. Not only the refugee students, but also those who stay at home because they are disabled or suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders (NPD) or are being bullied. Students with unstructured families and/or economic problems are also at a disadvantage often displaying poor performance at school. Developing innovative teaching and assessment methods will strengthen leadership in education including distributed leadership and teacher leadership. A ‘whole school approach’ is important as it engages the entire school community (school leaders, staff, learners, and families). SIDE will enable us to foster the development of social, civic and intercultural competences for students in a better manner than today and strengthen the profile of the teaching profession, including teachers, school leaders and teacher educators. About 500 students and 40 teachers/school leaders will participate in this project, out of whom, 84 aged between 13 to 18 will come together at Teaching and Learning Activities. Participant teachers will specialize in areas such as ICT, PE, Languages, Music, Arts, Sciences Maths, and Special Needs. When the project starts, the Swedish school will carry out an online survey for all schools to fill in. This survey will cover issues such as social exclusion, difficulties within school or in a new country and other issues relevant to SIDE. Before the first meeting in Greece, the students will be working on writing poems about friendship and solidarity. They will also develop and present photos and video stories about daily school life focusing on difficult situations experienced at school. While in Greece the Portuguese team will build a Robotics Kit and give instructions to every school on how to assemble it. Between the 1st and 2nd meeting, each school with their students will build and program a robot using the robotics kit supplied by the Portuguese school. During the meeting in Portugal, we will present each school´s robots and demonstrate their work. There will also be a workshop presented by one of our teachers, on Robotics. We will visit a Social and Cultural Association that works with young persons in underprivileged neighborhoods, many of whom are students at the Portuguese school. The Italian team will introduce the rules of the BASKIN game, a new sport invented by an Italian PE teacher, inspired by basketball with modified rules, that allows everyone to play. Between the 2nd and 3rd meeting, the teams will learn and prepare the BASKIN game. During the meeting in Italy, the BASKIN game will again be explained and played into the court and a tournament will be organized. Also, we will maintain connections and hold activities with other Associations which cooperate with our school, working on social inclusion. We will also organize a visit to Matera, the cultural capital, for 2019. The Swedish team will give instructions about the creation of the short stories on the topic friendship, tolerance and solidarity, to be presented in Stockholm. Before the meeting in Stockholm, the students will write and share those short stories. Students will write lyrics and rap texts in English and pass it on to the next country as a relay. The rap texts will be set to music in each school and the song will be practised in all four schools. The outcome will be a performance for the whole school where the rap song will be presented. There will be a lecture on special needs by the SPSM association. After the last meeting, the Swedish school will distribute the final survey to evaluate how well the issues of the project have been handled and how successful the project has been. Methodology to be used while carrying out the project • Teachers will share their experience and didactic methods with colleagues from the other countries through their scheduled Skype meetings; • Students will work together in groups to achieve common goals; • We will apply the methodology of peer teaching/learning, allowing students with better knowledge on a particular topic, to help his/her colleagues • The students' contact with foreign peers will make them more open to accept and welcome new and different students at their school. Be it students with Special Needs, including NPD, or students from different ethnical, social and economic backgrounds. • Teachers will be motivated, as they come in contact with colleagues from different backgrounds and share experiences which will be used to improve methodologies with a view to applying them effectively in the future. • The successful relationships between teachers will lead to future collaboration, thus increasing the schools' EU dimension. • Techniques and Good Practices will be applied not only to current students, but also to future generations of students.
In our schools today, students' social inclusion is a great need especially for those who are socially excluded for different reasons. Not only the refugee students, but also those who stay at home because they are disabled or suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders (NPD) or are being bullied. Students with dysfunctional families and/or economic problems are also at a disadvantage often performing poorly at school. Developing innovative teaching and assessment methods strengthened our leadership in education at our schools. A ‘whole school approach’ is important as it engages the entire school community (school leaders, staff, learners, and families). SIDE enabled us to foster the development of social, civic, and intercultural competences for students in a better manner than before and strengthen the profile of the teaching profession, including teachers, school leaders and teacher educators. About 40 teachers/school leaders and 500 students participated in this project. The students aged between 13 to 19 came together at Teaching and Learning Activities. Participant teachers specialized in areas such as ICT, PE, Languages, Music, Arts, Sciences Maths, and Special Needs. When the project started, the Swedish school carried out an online survey for all schools to fill in. This survey covered issues such as social exclusion, difficulties within school or in a new country and other issues relevant to SIDE. The questions in the survey were also about the meeting itself. That gave us information about which activities were appreciated by the students. In that way we found out that short stories and music were favorite activities among students and therefore we decided to keep them in each meeting. Before the first meeting in Greece, the students were working on writing poems/stories about friendship and solidarity which later were used as lyrics to songs. They also developed and presented photos and video stories about daily school life focusing on difficult situations experienced at school. While in Greece the Portuguese team built a Robotics Kit and gave instructions to every school. Between the 1st and 2nd meeting, each school with their students built and programed a robot using the robotics kit supplied by the Portuguese school. During the pandemics we organised online workshops to keep the project going. In the meeting in Portugal, we presented the robots and demonstrated their work. There also was a workshop on Robotics presented by one of our teachers. We visited a Social and Cultural Association that works with young people in underprivileged neighborhoods, many of whom were students at the Portuguese school. The Italian team introduced the rules of the BASKIN game, a new sport invented by an Italian PE teacher, inspired by basketball with modified rules, that allow everyone to play. Between the 2nd and 3rd meeting, the teams learnt and prepared the BASKIN game. During the meeting in Italy, the BASKIN game again was explained and practiced, and a tournament was organized. Also, we maintained connections and hold activities with other Associations which cooperate with the school, working on social inclusion. We also had many music and dance workshops which showed they are very simple tools that connect people. The Swedish team gave instructions about the creation of the short stories on the topic friendship, tolerance, and solidarity, which were presented in Stockholm. Before the meeting in Stockholm, the students wrote and shared those short stories online. Students wrote lyrics in English and performed it later during the final ceremony in Stockholm in front of the whole school. There was a lecture on special needs presented by a special needs teacher and the students who explained how they use the different digital techniques. After the last meeting, the Swedish school distributed the final survey to evaluate how the issues of the project had been handled and how successful the project had been. Teachers shared their experience and didactic methods with colleagues from other countries through their scheduled Teams meetings. Students worked together in groups to achieve common goals. We applied the methodology of peer teaching/learning, allowing students with better knowledge on a particular topic, to help his/her colleagues. The students' contact with foreign peers made them more open to accept and welcome new students at their school. Be it students with Special Needs, including NPD, or students from different ethnical, social, and economic backgrounds. Teachers were motivated, as they met colleagues from different backgrounds and shared experiences which was used to improve methodologies with a view of applying them effectively in the future. The successful relationships between teachers led to future collaboration, thus increasing the schools' EU dimension. Techniques and Good Practices were applied not only to current students, but also to future generations of students.