The purpose of the project was strengthening, spreading, disseminating, implementing, evaluating, improving and translating TESSIE, the Toolbox for Evaluating and Stimulating Social Inclusion in Education. We wanted to implement the project results on a systemic level in inspectorates, evaluating bodies and in schools all over Europe and make it a point of discussion on policy level. Tackling this challenge from the side of the inspectorates was innovative but also effective. Ensuring inclusion requires identifying and removing the barriers that prevent certain students from fully participating in school life. STESSIE facilitates this process by offering a structured self-assessment that focuses on key areas for improvement: inclusive leadership, school environment, and inclusive classroom practices.
End of 2018 started the KA2 project ‘Better Inspection for Better Social Inclusion’. The output of the project was TESSIE, a Toolbox for Evaluation and Stimulation Social Inclusion and Equity in Education in English. It is already clear that there is no mould for inclusive education. A certain level of variety is useful to fully align sources with the local needs. However, the challenge was to make the toolbox or application useful and organize a system in such a way that the conditions as well as the persons involved (e.g. inspectors, school leaders, teachers, parents...) are given sufficient capacity to deliver the best possible education to all children. This is the main impetus for initiating the STESSIE project. During and after COVID times there was really a need to pursue a 'better social inclusion' by focusing on this topic in the development of the skills of inspectors, external evaluators of schools, directors and teachers and inspector educators. We want to enlarge the scope of the initial study and use our experience to create a European network, for using and spreading the toolbox STESSIE and make a useful professional online application linked with the website www.STESSIE.eu