Through interviews with educational staff and analysis of needs, surveys among parents, as well as children's achievements, we identified the key needs of the institution that we want to work on through education in the European framework, and they are respectively defined as: 1. the need for new approaches to learning and teaching and the professional development of individuals 2. modernization of practice in existing special programs and acquisition of competences for new ones 3. introduction of new forms of cooperation between educators and professional associates As we were entering the process of introducing changes in some programs at the time of writing the project, it was necessary for us to empower and educate teachers on modern pedagogical concepts by observing practice in centers that are known as high-quality in their field of activity. In addition to alternative approaches to childcare, it was important for us to empower early English language learning teachers. And in the end, we noticed the need to improve cooperation between educators and professional associates, because of numerous challenges,due to the size of the institution and some major changes within the team as well as insufficient communication skills
"Cvit Mediterana" Kindergarten is a large institution founded by the City of Split and it employs over 200 educational staff and enrolls about 1,100 children in 58 groups in 21 facilities. Due to its size, the challenges are numerous, but after careful consideration, we highlighted a few key ones that we wanted to work on through the Erasmus+ project. First of all, there was an interest in going beyond the framework and usual ways of professional development of educators and professional associates, such as we can find within the borders of Croatia. The previous experience of participating as partners in the KA 2 project opened up some new perspectives for us, because through mobilites and hosting we saw the value of networking with colleagues from Europe, exchanging quality practices, getting to know different systems, learning about new approaches and participants highlighted the benefits on a personal and professional level, from those in the ICT area, through foreign language competences, up to the specific achievements of each individual team member. We saw numerous benefits for the institution gained in KA229 project, and we dared to write a project and wanted to work on the specific goals and needs of our institution.