5.2 Δίκτυα ενδιαφερόμενων φορέων

Guiding Cities joins policy makers and education stakeholders to map policy and guidance and create coherent policy to respond to the complex needs in the fight against ESL.

The project aimed to:
• Analyse guidance actions in 4 countries through country-based focus groups including stakeholders in education and guidance.
• Develop a Guiding Cities Model and Checklist mapping different possible actions, actors community needs relative to guidance and lifelong learning.
• Establish and manage Working Groups and a survey of best practices (involving at least 40 stakeholders).
• Publish online the GCities Model and links to resources and practices for each type of action and/or each target group. The GCities tools will be available in 6 languages (EN, ES, CAT, IT, EL, RO).
• Test the GCities Model and Checklist-benchmarking tools with at least 40 communities or organisations.
• Improve professional development of local service providers and school guidance practitioners.

The IKAN project is a project where higher education students of the consortium of Antwerp University and Colleges (AUHA) voluntarily assist Newly Arrived Immigrant (including Refugee) Children with their studies in secondary education. This project aims to respond to the large increase of Newly Arrived Immigrant Children in Flemish education in recent years.

After a maximum of 1 year in reception classes (i.e. OKAN: reception classes for foreign-speaking newcomers), newly arrived immigrant students continue to regular education. This transition is often difficult. Only a small part of the foreign-speaking newcomers who started in OKAN eventually receives a secondary education diploma. With the name IKAN (referring to I Can) the project wants to emphasize that newly arrived immigrant children can have a successful education career, when provided with the right support.

In the school year 2015/16 the Schulzentrum Ybbs (a school center consisting of three vocational upper secondary schools) introduced a concept called IndY, which involves that 20% of the teaching time is intended for individualized learning. IndY aims at improving students’ expertise, motivation, self-responsibility, self-management, collaborative skills, emotional intelligence and learning methods.

The aim of the report Nordic Projects to Combat School Dropout is to improve and inspire new initiatives for young people, and to create enriching contacts between actors and organisations in the Nordic region.
The Nordic Web Resource on Dropout from Upper Secondary Education was a project commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers and run by the Nordic Welfare Centre between 2012 and 2015. The aim of the project was to compile good examples of initiatives aimed at increasing the proportion of young people in the Nordic region who complete upper secondary education.

In 2011/2012, the Dutch School Inspectorate concluded that student results in the Tjotter school were too low. The school used to have a negative pedagogical climate, and suffered from a loss of trust between school and parents. Eventually, the school staff lost confidence in the former school leader and requested the school board to appoint a new leader. With an arrival of the current school leader four years ago, innovative processes started. A common view of education and teacher mutual learning was established, in addition to the culture of continuous improvement.

Key interventions:

• improvement of teachers’ pedagogical and didactical skills: team schooling with subsequent follow up and monitoring within the learning community of teachers, individual coaching and change of personnel
• creating student portfolios to make students the owners of their learning process while students were also encouraged to participate in its formation
• other approaches being used at school: positive behaviour support; encouraging student participation and (direct) feedback on student’s results; ‘Teach like a Champion’; and HGW (Action Oriented Approach) for student differentiation.

In the past, the Dutch School Inspectorate notified the Warande school about their students‘ low results. The school staff, however, were very much hesitant towards the test-driven-accountability-approach established by the Inspectorate. Therefore, the school team decided to re-define and interpret test-driven accountability in their own way. Instead of emphasising the learning results per se, they wanted to focus on the process of learning itself – starting from children’s needs and guiding them in their own development.

To be able to focus on children’s continuous development, the school also felt the need to integrate the child day care, kindergarten, elementary education and after school care. These issues ignited the need for organisational and pedagogical changes. Overall, the school has been innovative during recent years, and latest innovative approaches represent a continuity of this process and reflect the school’s innovative culture.

The school’s approach to teaching and learning is based on attaining educational excellence and achievement for all students. The school developed a stimulating curriculum which seeks to provide its students with an understanding of the learning processes in which they are involved (meta-cognition) – and to build their self-belief. The provision of specialist teaching in certain subject areas (science, music, art, physical education) is a key element in this process, as is the development of maths teaching throughout the school (for 6th graders). The teaching of philosophy to all students is also a vital element in developing students’ thinking skills, resilience and self-confidence. Curriculum innovation is undertaken on the initiative of the school, working in co-operation with its Federation partners at Whitmore Park Primary School. All staff, the governing body, students and parents are regularly consulted and made part of the process of curriculum development, and the school is strongly engaged with community partners in developing broader learning activities.

The school has been developing innovative practices of informal learning for six years (since 2011). The main aims of these innovative approaches were to improve the educational level of pupils and school performance, to promote their social competences and sensitivity to the surrounding community and to enhance cooperation between teachers. As the first step of the informal learning approach, the school aimed to create informal learning environments by renovating the school yard and make it suitable for the learning purposes. As a second step, the school designed various learning approaches connected to the yard and broader school community (e.g., focusing on environmental education, natural sciences, reading). In this process the school cooperated with external stakeholders (scientists, artists, craftworkers, museums, etc.).   

The overall objective of the project is to reduce the drop out rates of learners in vocational education and training, by providing materials and tools for counsellors and trainers to develop their own skills in working with groups, to detect potential dropouts and the special characteristics of learners’ groups, provide support adjusted to individual needs, and thereby improve the quality of their vocational education systems.