Launch of the Teacher Academy: a European response to teacher professional development needs

With rapidly changing societies, Europe’s 5 million teachers face an increasing number of challenges in their daily work in the classroom and they often struggle to receive the training or support to address these. To support teachers overcome these barriers, the European Commission has now launched Teacher Academy, a single point of access to professional development activities including a new service of online courses specifically made for School Education Gateway, the hugely popular on-site courses, which have already helped many European teachers to meet their training needs and versatile teaching materials created by the EU institutions and EU-funded projects.

Be a pioneer teacher: Join the first Teacher Academy online course!

Join the first Teacher Academy online course Introducing Project-Based Learning in your Classroom to discover the concept of project-based learning (PBL) and how to implement this pedagogical approach in your classroom. The course, starting on 6 June and ending on 10 July, will equip you with concrete examples, ideas and tools to inspire and support you embark on a Project-Based Learning journey. Enrolment is open and entirely free! More than 1,400 educators have already registered. Are you one of them?

The School Education Gateway platform has been revamped!

The School education Gateway has a new, even more intuitive homepage and reorganised structure. Browse the new sections of the platform: Latest, where you can find fresh insights into school education policy and practice, Viewpoints, where you can explore views and surveys on school education, Resources, publications, materials and toolkits for teachers and school leaders to stay informed and to enhance their practice, Erasmus+ opportunities, three tools and information for schools to prepare their Erasmus+ applications and finally Teacher Academy, professional development opportunities for teachers through online and on-site courses and teaching materials.

Monthly topic - May

Cultural Awareness and Expression (CAaE) competence involves appreciation of the creative expression of ideas, experiences and emotions and active creation in a range of media. It can be used as a versatile cross-curricular tool in classrooms. Find out more about this competence in these articles: three examples on delivering and incorporating CAaE into classrooms, expert article on the recently published handbook on fostering cultural awareness and expression, interview on why cultural education matters, and how heritage can contribute to CAaE.

Monthly topic - April

Parents are the first teachers children have, and possibly, the most significant ones throughout their development. Discover in the School Education Gateway April practice article three amazing projects that bring children, parents and schools together by encouraging parents to engage in schoolwork in order to improve their children’s literacy. Also, don’t miss the expert article by Susannah Chambers on how the hugely positive and cost-effective impact of family learning can aid learning in both the young and the old and watch the recording of the webinar on Family Learning and Digital Citizenship, organised by the School Education Gateway.

Monthly topic - March

Job van Velsen speaks in support of community schools and the rich learning environment they can provide for Europe’s future adults. To find out more on this topic, read the March practice article School and communities work together for pupils’ life-skills highlighting three projects that have successfully linked schools to local communities with the aim of providing quality content and learning opportunities for students. Also, check out the article on Public Libraries 2020 campaign (PL2020), highlighting several initiatives showing cooperation between schools and libraries as a way to promote literacy skills in Europe.