The idea of the project which involves 10 educators (SLT, educators, LSEs) for a structured training course entitled 'Original Best Practices Benchmarking courses' in Finland keeps in mind the following objectives: 1) Our educators and management will learn about European best practices in terms of innovative learning programmes and practices, methods and skills; 2)Introduce educators and management in schools to concepts, tools, and exchanges about digital transformation in learning and facilitate school transition to digital technologies in teaching; 3)Increase our school's capacity to work and cooperate on a European level - through the course which is based on an exchange of good practices among educators across Europe, and set the ball rolling for a KA2 project in enhancing curricular changes; 4)Empower our educators/management with the knowledge and skills necessary to make the needed changes to our SDP & curriculum in the long term.
Our school is committed to provide holistic education to its students and tackle issues such as reducing the skills gaps , catering for the socially disadvantaged children, and curbing early school leaving (Ministry of Education 2016). Within this context, we need to embrace change on different levels, namely philosophical, strategical, managerial and pedagogical. Our educators identified a common feeling that they need fresh ideas from a pool of professionals and possibly classroom observations in other countries, to empower themselves to be able to make these changes. Looking at the PISA and Timms/Pirls Results, Finland was surely one European model to look into. Consequently, the school is aiming to develop a comprehensive long-term school policy plan to target our future development, within a European context. The school has set the integration of innovative ideas into our work organisation and practices as one of the main objectives in its SDP. We believe that this change can only take place by experiencing what other fellow counterparts are doing outside the Maltese context.