“RESPE.CT.: RESPonsiblE education against violence” arises from Istituto Comprensivo “Leonardo De Lorenzo” of Viaggiano’s idea to start an international cooperation path with the Primary School “Zhivko Brajkovski” (Macedonia), the “Agrupamento de Escolas Murtosa” (Portugal) and the “Społeczna Językowa Szkoła Podstawowa” (Poland), in order to break down the barriers of silence surrounding the problem of discrimination, bullying and cyberbullying, by promoting non-violence at school. According to School Education Gateway survey, ona sample of 515 people interviewed, occasional discriminatory incidents occur in almost half of schools (47%). According to UNESCO (Behind the numbers: Ending school violence and bullying - 2019), 32% of students have beenbullied by their schoolmates at least once, 21,1% have been victims of cyberbullying, 36% have been involved in a physical struggle with another student and almost 32,4% have been physically attacked. According to the Report by the Regional Childhood and Adolescence Guarantor of Basilicata region, among those who claimed they were bullied at Primary Schools, 10% of girls and 21% of boys attending Post-primary schools, do not talk about it with anyone. The exchanges, both the transnational mobilities (a total of 6 days for 6 learners for each partner school) and the virtual exchanges on the eTwinning Platform, will involve learners aged 11 - 14 years who will analyse the topic of contrasting violence at school. About 40% of the mobility will be reserved for learners with fewer opportunities. Specific objectives of “RESPE.CT.” are: - to support opportunities to acquire and develop key competences for everyone, including basic skills; - to promote a respectful and responsible attitude among learners; - to educate young people to be active and responsible citizens; - to promote international dialogue amongpeers; - to fight all forms of violence and discrimination; - to promote the internationalisation and cooperation of educational institutions; - to start the exchange of good educational practices among transnational colleagues; - to act as active Training Agencies on the local area. Through the methodologies of Role Playing, Cooperative Learning, Peer Education, learners will be able to improve their linguistic skills (communication and their written and oral multilingual comprehension), on the topic of citizenship, learning to learn, creativity, digital skills and ICT. In addition, learners will develop important soft skills such as, respect of roles, problem solving, teamwork, cooperation, communication. The teachers who take part in the project implementation will improve their management and project development competences, as well as their communication skills in foreign language and ICT. Each transnational mobility, hosted in rotation by each partner School, will allow partners to deal with different topics related to the main theme of non-violence at school: - C1: “Act against discrimination”; - C2: “Combat Bullying and Cyberbullying”; - C3: “Stop to Racism”; - C4: “Kick Violence”. Through the creation of articles, slogans, Cineforums, debates, newspapers, sports tournaments, learners will be able to understand how to oppose all events going against the directives of the “Paris Declaration” of 2015 which “RESPE.CT.” is inspired by. The project outputs and their dissemination will be useful to raise awareness among the wider public. The topics will be simultaneously discussed on eTwinning Platform in order to create useful materials for the project implementation. In addition, a newspaper (“WE ACT, WE RESPECT!”) will be created, which can continue to be edited after the end of the project activities in cooperation with the partner Schools. The partner Schools will be able to improve their management and project development skills in the framework of Erasmus+ Programme, starting new cooperationsestablished on theeTwinning platform and the dissemination of the project proposal and the project outputs created. In addition, they will innovate their educational offer, thanks to the exchange of good practices, becoming virtuous examples of inclusive schools and bearers of high civic values. 100% of learners will improve their average grade in language subjects and thosedebated during the implementation phases. The presence on Erasmus+ Project Results and the activity of teachers on eTwinning and School Education Gateway will allow Institutes to gain visibility and to be internationally recognized as virtuous and innovative Training Agencies, with the consequent increase of cooperation and contacts that will lead to a progressively structured and long-lasting Europeanisation.
“RESPE.CT.: RESPonsiblE eduCaTion against violence” was born from the desire of the “Leonardo De Lorenzo” Comprehensive Institute of Viggiano to start a path of international cooperation, together with the “Zhivko Brajkovski” Primary School (Macedonia), the "Agrupamento de Escolas Murtosa" (Portugal) and the "Społeczna Językowa Szkoła Podstawowa" (Poland), in order to break down the barriers of silence that surround the problem of discrimination, bullying and cyberbullying, in a broader discourse that promotes non-violence at school. Nowadays, discriminatory incidents occur in almost half of schools and many students are victims of bullying or cyberbullying by their classmates. The exchanges, both physical (6 days in total for 6 students for each partner institution) and virtual on eTwinning, involved students from classes I, II and III of Lower Secondary Schools (from 11 to 14 years old) who analyzed the topic of combating violence at school. In this regard, the objectives achieved with the “RESPE.CT.” project were: the opportunity for everyone to acquire and develop key competences, including basic skills; having succeeded in promoting a respectful and responsible attitude among learners and in combating all forms of violence and discrimination; we tried to educate students to be active and responsible citizens; it was possible to promote an international dialogue among peers and different educational institutions; furthermore, it was possible to initiate an exchange of good educational practices between transnational colleagues. Through the methodologies of role playing, cooperative learning, peer education, the learners were able to improve their linguistic skills (multilingual communication and understanding, both written and oral), in the fields of citizenship, learning to learn, creativity, digital and ICT skills. Furthermore, the learners developed important soft skills such as respect for roles, problem solving, teamwork, cooperation, communication. The teachers who took part in the project implementation managed to improve their management and planning, communication skills in a foreign language and ICT. Each exchange allowed us to discuss different topics related to the central theme of non-violence at school: - C1: “Act against discrimination”; - C2: “Combat Bullying and Cyberbullying”; - C3: “Stop to Racism”; - C4: “Kick Violence”. Through the creation of newspaper articles, slogans, film forums, debates, newspapers, sports tournaments, the students were able to work to understand how to counteract all those violent behaviors that "RESPE.CT." aimed to oppose and defeat. The project outputs were useful in raising awareness among the wider public following their dissemination. The issues were addressed at the same time on eTwinning in order to create useful materials for project implementation and a newspaper was also created (“WE ACT, WE RESPECT!”) which will continue to be edited even at the end of the project activities in cooperation with the partner institutes. Finally, the latter were able to improve their management and planning skills in the context of Erasmus+ programming and innovated their educational offer, thanks to the exchange of good practices and becoming virtuous examples of inclusive schools and bearers of high civic values. The presence on Erasmus+ Project Results and the activity of the teachers on eTwinning have allowed the Institutes to obtain visibility and to be recognized, at an international level, as virtuous and innovative Training Agencies, with the consequent increase in cooperation and contacts which in the future we hope will lead to a Europeanization that we expect it will be increasingly structured and long-lasting.