1.2. Schoolplanning en -controle

UNICEF Serbia and the civil society organisation Centre for Education Policy with the support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development Republic of Serbia  implemented the project “Combating Early School Leaving in Serbia”.

This project aimed to contribute to decreasing drop-out and early school leaving of children and adolescents through development, establishment, and implementation of the school-based model for early identification of children at risk of dropping out and intervention in situations where dropping-out is taking place.

Combating drop-out and ESL in Serbia has been recognised as a policy priority area.  The Strategy for Education Development in Serbia 2020 (SEDS 2020) calls for the provision of high-quality education for all, an increase of students’ coverage and attainment at all levels of education by maintaining the relevance of education and increasing efficiency. The Strategy implementation is primarily focused on the development of human capital in Serbia, thus underlines importance of the inclusion of pupils from vulnerable and marginalised groups (Roma and children from poor families, children with disabilities and from rural areas etc.).

The CroCooS - Prevent dropout! project was developed in the framework of the EC proposal "Implementation of the European strategic objectives in education and training" under the Lifelong Learning Programme to support innovative policy solutions to reduce and prevent early leaving from education and training (ELET). The main aim of the CroCooS project, which was implement between 2014 and 17, was to contribute to the development of an institutional early warning system (EWS) for preventing early leaving from education and training. It also tested its applicability with national pilots focusing on contextual factors affecting the evaluation.
Regional needs addressed included: sensitizing the staff of each school on the need to address the problem of dropout; actively involving teachers in monitoring students and working with them; developing better relationships between students and teachers; strengthening pupils' sense of belonging to the class and the school; developing relationships of trust by being supportive and ensuring a safe school climate.

Het Zweedse onderwijs is gestoeld op respect voor de mensenrechten en fundamentele democratische waarden zoals de onschendbaarheid van het menselijk leven, gelijke behandeling van alle mensen, respect voor de persoonlijke integriteit van het individu en gendergelijkheid. In overeenstemming met deze waarden wordt veel belang gehecht aan het feit dat onderwijs inclusief moet zijn en dat alle vormen van discriminatie en intimidatie, waaronder pesten, actief moeten worden bestreden.

In Portugal worden indicatoren met betrekking tot voortijdig schoolverlaten en het verbeteren van de leerprestaties gebruikt om de kwaliteit van de prestaties van leerlingen te verhogen en het goede werk dat alle openbare scholen verzetten, te erkennen/belonen.

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 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 project focuses on the role of school leadership in actively structuring the educational process for learning and equity.

The project builds on the achievements of the Comenius Network “European Policy Network on School Leadership (EPNoSL, 2011-2014)”.

The project involved two intense job shadowing activities in Vienna and Berlin. Good practice and obstacles were identified though feedback forms, and solidified in collaborative analysis and evaluation.

Tools to support leadership action were developed and tested by the two school principals in everyday school life, and analysed through questionnaires/surveys and subsequently evaluated and summed up in bilateral groups.

The film produced by the partners can be found here:

https://youtu.be/UJR9Opwg4QM

The learning hub was implemented at the TGM (an upper-level secondary technical college) as a school experiment in the school year 2016/17. It has been implemented in the school’s Information Technology (IT) Department in two of the four classes in the first year (i.e. grade 9).

In the learning hub students study self-regulated 20 hours per week. Of these 20 hours, 9 hours relate to general education subjects (German, English and Mathematics) and 11 hours involve vocational education subjects (Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Media Technology, Network Technology). The other 6 school subjects (Geography, History and Political Education, Natural Sciences, Religion, Sports, Computer Workshop), which encompass 13 hours per week, are still taught by using traditional methods of teaching.

"Mijn opleiding, mijn baan, mijn toekomst" is een project waarmee beoogd wordt voortijdig schoolverlaten te voorkomen en leerlingen aan te moedigen en te inspireren hun opleiding voort te zetten.