Soft skills OUtside of school Learning environment (SOUL Skills) is a project aimed at providing information about the effects of the current social isolation EU countries undertake as a measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic on children age 6-12. The partnership involves 7 entities from 6 countries (GR, ES, IT, FR IS, 2 from BG) with diverse, but complimentary, experiences, knowledge and qualification in training on different education levels. The main project idea is to give information about effects of social isolation due to Covid-19 on children’s behavior and socialization to educators and they to know how to evaluate the appearing deficits and to direct their overcome. The focus is on analyzing the development of soft (transferable) skills after relatively long and unexpected remote education. The project objectives are: 1) to identify lack of transferable skills development of children aged 6-12 years with focus on their development and proper assessment; 2) to create a mechanism (descriptors) for joint evaluation of transversal skills of children aged 6-12; 3) to design a set of methods - Toolbox for supporting development of these transversal skills. The attention is on transferable skills development as it is well known that these skills (creativity and critical thinking, curiosity, communication and collaboration skills, self-assessment and ability to evaluate social situations) are key element for children’s growth and maturity and have to be developed in parallel with acquired knowledge. Engagement in creative and cultural activities during schooling improves a child’s attention and cognition; arts are tools to teach pupils to “envision”, that is, to think about what they can’t see. Remote education in crisis which duration is hard to predict creates lack of schooling culture and environment that reflect on deficits of development of these transferable skills. The 3 project intellectual outputs provide innovative approach to soften the negative effects of social isolation by creating a Joint Evaluation Methodology (IO2) and Toolbox with set of methods based on STEAM approach (IO3), which educators to use to stimulate development of soft skills. The skills that are in the focus of evaluation are revealed in a comparative analysis about effects of different measures taken by Governments to cope with pandemic (IO1). It provides a state-of-art picture about effects of social isolation due to Covid-19 to children socialization in 6 EU countries and the comparative information could be used also for policy and decision making to cope the with pandemic. Innovative elements of the evaluation methodology are: measuring the development of transferable skills to be during non-formal training/activities outside of school during cultural and creatively oriented activities, the two educational processes: generating new academic knowledge and forming transferable skills to go in parallel but at different spaces and teaching/training to be provided by different educators, to establish long-term collaboration between schools and centers for non-formal education in order to multiply resources and acquired knowledge by children. Within the activity “SOUL Ambassadors” 14 partner organisations’ staff are trained to use the assessment methodology and work with the developed tools. The partnership will ensure free access to digital learning environment by publishing the 3 intellectual outputs on the Italian partners’ educational platform. Project branding and identity will be established, 4 newsletters published, materials on partner’s websites, social media and 6 national Multiplier events will be held with 175 attendees. The SOUL partnership has established shared responsibilities between the partners. The cooperation mechanisms include: Quality and Evaluation Board; Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy, division of tasks according to experience and expertise of the partners for each project activity, setting of working groups, risk management and conflict resolution. “Project management, organization and monitoring” will strengthen the strategic partnership among 4 non-profits (NGOs and foundations) in the non-formal educational sector and culture and 3 for profits (educational and research centers, SMSs) during four live or virtual project meetings. The outputs of the SOUL project will have a long-term impact as the evaluation mechanism for soft skills and the educational Toolbox will be made available in the foreseeable future to all relevant stakeholder groups, teachers, educators in the creative and cultural sectors and parents. The capacity of the partners’ own solid networks of training and research centers, educational institutions, cultural organizations and authorities at local, regional and national level will be enhanced within the current partnership with the innovative methodology, approaches and tools.
The project developed a general information about effects of closing the school and remote learning in 6 EU countries with stress on the negative effect on pupils’ soft skills development, created a new joint mechanism for soft skills evaluation with a Toolbox with set off methods provided to be directly used by teachers in primary schools and in out of school centers. It ensures teachers/educators to have knowledge about pupil’s degree of skills development and to give them knowledge and means how to support and direct skills’ development. Thus, educators would have opportunities to apply individual approach to each pupil in various educational settings, focusing on the skills that have to be stimulated more. In parallel, this would stimulate academic knowledge acquisition. The project found a form to stimulate mutual understanding about the need of collaboration between teachers and parents and to motivate parents to be more involved in education of their children.
A priority for EU countries is pupils to achieve high quality of education and in parallel with academic knowledge acquiring to develop soft skills. Covid pandemic affected severely the education sector, particularly on children 6-12 years (pupils) and made visible some key issues that need to find solutions such as: increasing literacy, eliminating mismatching between teaching and learning, programs to be relevant to children’s mentality and culture, etc. However, skills development is a priority of the EU polices, still there is no mechanism for assessing the degree of development of skills, allowing their comparison between schools, regions and EU countries. Covid-19 pandemic pointed out its importance and necessity as a tool to eliminate some existing weaknesses. The project analyzed the extent to which pupils lack soft skills and created a mechanism for assessing those skills and to direct teachers in their work individually with each pupil. It provided information about the deficits of developing soft skills of pupils in 6 EU countries and analyzed the effects of different measures of isolation due to Covid-19 have had on the skills formation of pupils; it allowed different policies and measures to be shared.