Inclusion is a widespread concept, and with our project title “All onboard” we have indicated the direction we want to give our project. The idea of the project is to highlight all the students who have somehow ended up outside the large group. The project’s six partners have different focus areas and approaches, but what we have in common is that we have groups of students that we want to work actively to include more clearly in the school life. For some partners this deals with students with different physical disabilities, while for others it is about integrating students who have recently moved to the country. These may be children with little or no schooling who should now be part of a group that has several years of education behind them. Whatever the approach the partners have, it is fundamental for the partners to include all students in the everyday school work, lesson by lesson. The project is deliberately dealing with the youngest year groups at the school. “Early intervention” is a term that has gained a foothold as good pedagogy in school, and in terms of the theme of inclusion early intervention is perhaps more important than anything else. If we succeed in creating a sense of real inclusion for all students from the earliest years, not only will we save the school and its children with their families for many years of struggle and frustration, but we will save society a great deal of money in a lifelong perspective. Our overall objective is to see that students demanding some extra in one way or the other, will have the assurance that they belong to the group, no matter the shape or size of that group. The aim of the project is for each partner institution to increase its competence in, and awareness of, the inclusion of students who are at risk of being excluded from the community. The project partners are chosen based on their thoughts and needs within the topic of inclusion. All partners have a clear idea of their need to increase their competence in the field of inclusion. We can see from the profile of each school that our project has the potential to make 6 x 1 more than six. Here everyone brings with them experiences from their own institution, but also the need to bring their competence to a stable, higher level. It is a basic requirement that all partners enter the project with an open attitude, a desire and an expectation that the project will bring added value to the school’s practice in the work of inclusion. Each partner has a key participant group consisting of 4- 6 persons chosen from different criteria. We want to show each other how we work on inclusion in each school, and we want to use each other’s competence to increase competence locally. This will be done by creating arenas for observation, information, discussion and reflection on each project visit. All activities and experiences we make along the way will be gathered into a compendium that will be expanded throughout the project and live on when the project is over. We will carry out surveys before and after the project, that together with the compendium will be good indicators of whether we have succeeded. Participants are required to present a before and after picture of their institution, and our clear expectation is that two years of clear focus on inclusion will give clear and concrete results for the partner institutions. The key to a short term sucsess is to raise awareness and competence at each partner institution. This project deals with best practise, and we know that there are things that can be improved at all partner institutions, and there are things that we can learn from each partner institution. The methods mentioned above will help us raise the level of awareness and competense through improving the professional skills for each participant. It is not possible to measure future benefits in money or numbers, but we know that for every person who is saved from a life on social benefits, society saves millions in a life long perspective. There are large sums of money in total. It is about everything from creating mastery for those students who have always felt like a loser, to preventing those students who could potentially end up in destructive environments to abandon school too early. Instead they will go through with their education and become a social support and constructive taxpayer. Our focus will be more on an everyday level. Our goal is that each of the children we are responsible for in our schools should know that they belong in the group and that it is good to spend time with schoolmates and friends. This will increase their self esteem and confidence and improve pupils' emotional status which is the best prevention of developing different inappropriate behaviour later in life.
We want to achieve better practice for teachers, through increased awareness, challenged attitudes and more competence. The short-term objective of this project is to help the students to experience inclusion in their everyday school-life. The long-term objective is to save the school, its children, and families from many years of struggle and frustration. This could be a benefit for society, which might save a great deal of money in a lifelong perspective. We wanted to work on this project with colleges from different parts of Europe, to learn good inclusive practice from each other. The distance in geography, might help us bring in new perspectives.
At Verket skole, we wanted to make our school a better place for all children, and especially improve the situation for the children that doesn’t feel like they belong to the large group. We applied for this project, because it is an opportunity to dedicate time and resources to work systematically to better include students in school life. Through a project like this, it is possible to increase the teacher’s competence in a way that enable them to make the students thrive better, and hence learn more, and consequently they will be better equipped for life. The Education Act states the importance of this in the purpose of the law, § 1-1. Through the Salamanca Statement (1994), all European schools are committed to inclusion, yet we know that in real life, there is always room for improvement. All children need to feel included, yet we realize that students who deals with physical disabilities, have spectre disorder, reduced hearing, struggle emotionally, are gifted, struggle to learn, live in low-income families, or speak another language will be in a greater need of help. “Early intervention” is considered good pedagogy in school, and we are mainly dealing with first till fourth grade.