When we applied for this project, we had three main goals: Firstly, to let our students develop their personal, social and learning to learn competences through an international exchange. This was our main goal that we wanted to permeate the whole project, that is why we named the project: Inclusion through personal, social and learning to learn competences. Within these competences we decided to focus on six objectives: communication, co-operation, coping with uncertainties, learn to learn, physical and emotional well-being, and building confidence. Secondly, we wanted to include students with special needs in an international co-operation. We saw great benefits in an exchange that could give students opportunities to build personal, social and learning competences in ways not possible otherwise. Since our schools work with pupils with learning disabilities and early school leavers, we recognized the urgent need to support confidence-building and strategies for coping with uncertainties. Thirdly, we wanted to start a long-term collaboration between our schools. By working together with colleagues in another EU country we will be able to share strategies for tackling learning disabilities and reducing early school leaving.
Both schools in this partnership work with marginalized pupils who struggle with learning disabilities and face the risk of early school leaving. Together we saw how these challenges can be addressed through an international exchange in which our schools get the opportunity to learn from each other at same time as we provide our pupils with a setting in which they can develop their personal, social and learning to learn competences. Through the activities in the project, we had the opportunity to work with our pupils’ ability to communicate, co-operate, cope with uncertainties, learn to learn and build confidence. They also got the chance to discuss and reflect upon their physical and emotional well-being. All of these areas are important for pupils to grow in as they make their way through the educational system. For the average pupil this is something that they often develop quite naturally but for our pupils who are marginalized, suffer from poor health and struggle with learning disabilities these are areas in which they need more guidance and opportunities to develop these abilities. We are happy to say that our Erasmus+ project managed to meet the needs of our pupils to develop these key competences.