1.1. School culture and climate

The project partners designed and implemented a new anti-bullying programme in schools in five EU countries. It drew on the experiences of existing programmes and practices originated by the project partners working in different cultural contexts.  It provided further evidence of effective approaches to the reduction of bullying in schools that will inform the development of improved child centred, whole school strategies for adoption at European level.

To improve the school climate, a group of schools from the Learning Communities project decided to create the Brave’s Club. It is based on a “dialogical model of conflict prevention”. Since the Club started in 2014, it has made progress in eradicating school violence in both primary and secondary schools. This strategy is making it easier to bring together effective evidence-informed practices on preventing violence in classrooms in general, and more specifically, gender violence.

E-EVALINTO aims to promote peer mentorship to reduce early school leaving among migrant students and to acknowledge the value of interculturality, as well as develop an ICT framework for assessing, managing and developing activities for intercultural contexts. The Erasmus+ funded project focuses on decision-making processes and the identification of different patterns in the situations analysed.

The ICAM (Including Children Affected by Migration) programme is an Erasmus+ programme designed to ensure that children who have been affected by migration can access education. The programme helps schools to create a safe and secure environment for children affected by migration to enable them to take full advantage of their education.

The InScool methodology is designed to flexibly guide schools through the start of a journey towards inclusion, improving personal and academic outcomes for all children and young people by focusing on their access to – and participation in – quality, relevant education.

The Joaquim Ruyra Elementary School is located in a disadvantaged suburban district of Barcelona. In the 2016-2017 school year, 92% students were immigrants representing 28 different nationalities (including Pakistan, Morocco, Georgia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Senegal, and the USA) or from minority background (Romani). The school has a 40% mobility rate.  

National and international press have referred to the school as the miracle school as it had achieved academic outcomes above the average in the Catalan standardised tests, outperforming elite schools in the Catalonia region.

All classes in the school feature group work 40% to 60% of the time. The groups mix students of different abilities, genders and nationalities.  The small groups are designed to ensure that no one is left out, and students are encouraged to participate actively.  Each group is facilitated by an adult (e.g. a classroom assistants, a parent).  Psychologists and special education teachers may also work in the classrooms, and they support volunteer parents, teachers and the students.  The extra support and student interaction are considered as essential for supporting and reinforcing children’s learning. 

The objective of the MiCREATE project is to encourage the inclusion of diverse groups of migrant children by adopting a child-centred approach to the integration of migrant children at educational and policy level. Stemming from the need to revisit the existing integration policies, the research project aims to comprehensively examine the contemporary integration processes of migrant children to enhance their agency, participation, and well-being.

"Our School - My Future" was an ESL project initiated within the framework of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for School Education. It aims to support cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices between schools from different countries across Europe.
Part of the problem of ESL is attributed to lack of support and guidance, disengagement from schooling, and secondary-level curricula which too often do not offer enough options for varied courses, alternative teaching pedagogies, experiential and other hands-on learning opportunities or sufficient flexibility and support.
The framework for this project was designed to focus mainly on in-school factors influencing ESL, such as teaching methods and curricular issues, positive/negative school climate, and the parents’ role as a contributing factor to ESL.
A distance education programme, “Promotion of healthy lifestyles and development of the students’ social skills through physical education and environmental activities” was offered to teachers from five partner countries. Some 65 teachers from Greece, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Turkey had the opportunity to participate in this training programme, along with six academics who are also members of the Hellenic Academy of Physical Education.

With mental health issues having been multiplied among young people on a global scale, UPRIGHT is a project that teaches the skills needed for good physical and mental health. It is being implemented in schools, and early adolescents, their families, and all school staff of the participating schools are involved.