Higher quality in education with family support

Comenius School Partnership Project

07-PM-335-MM-RO 2007 - 2009

A better insertion on the European labour market is one of the aims of education today.

Starting from the present situation in schools we have noticed that the drop-outs and the low results at graduating, and thus a low rate of social inclusion, are most of the time due to the lack of family involvement in children’s personal and professional development.

This situation is increasing dramatically today mainly in the less developed countries of Europe where the rate of migration of the labour force is increasing, children remaining at home in the care of their grandparents and relatives.

Through this European partnership we will try to find out the position of all parts involved regarding this issue, the causes which keep parents / relatives away from school and the modalities to make them get involved in the school activities directly and continuously.

Parents and relatives should understand that their presence in school is beneficial for their children.

Teachers and students have to become aware of the necessity of this cooperation for the common benefit, and thus, for raising the quality in education

1. The concrete aims of the Partnership are:

§ To shape a positive attitude (curiosity, respect, collaboration) towards those different from you.

§ To compare and acknowledge the individual characteristics and value the differences between people, countries, experiences, while recognising the value of integration, of cultural exchange and the overcoming of geographical limits.

§ To contribute to the formation of the European dimension in education by spreading the culture of integration and fighting against racism, xenophobia and discrimination.

§ To study the existing situation related to the relationship school-family with direct impact upon students’ school results

§ To find together the best solutions to bring families to school so as to prevent the raising rate of drop outs and violence that is being manifested in many schools all over Europe.

§ To involve parents in the educational process and to allow them to participate in it..

§ To determine the reasons for the antisocial behaviour of some students and its two way relation to family-community-school

§ to raise the quality in education in order to assure a better insertion of graduates in higher education and in the labour market

§ To use the language (in readings, production of texts, e-mail, blogs) as a living instrument of communication, a means by which we can get to know each other, a vehicle for human and cultural values.

§ To learn good practice by comparing the educational systems, the school planning, the teaching / learning methods in the countries concerned.

§ To plan research and process information following correct methods, adopting interactive strategies and using suitable tools (including Information Technology).

§ To carry out conscientiously the commitments taken, respecting the deadlines and bringing constructive contributions to the work of the group, of the class, of the people involved in the project (your own school and the foreign partners).

Apart from improving the school methods, the above objectives will help to increase the awareness of the students and others involved in the project (teachers, families, local authorities and communities) towards problems and opportunities concerning the integration of different cultures in a small territory, in a national context and in wider contexts.

People and institutions will try to find solutions to the difficulties but they will also experience the wealth that derives from comparison, from dialogue, from the sharing of ideas and values, thus participating in that human, civil, political and cultural progress that comes from a precise and informed consideration of the potentiality of a multiethnic Europe able to guarantee to everyone the right of citizenship based on new values, not only on the traditional concept of belonging to a state defined in territorial terms.

2. The impact the Partnership is expected to have on the participants and other interested parties (on the pupils, teachers, institutions, local community, wider educational community) is that of making them all aware of the importance of joining their efforts together for raising the quality in education , for a better insertion in higher education or directly on the labour market and for a successful personal and professional development of the young generations. This will be for the benefit of all actors of the educational scene: students, parents, teachers, local communities.

3. In order to evaluate the progress of the Partnership and its impact on the participating pupils and teachers assessment and evaluation will be carried out in each phase of the work and will refer to the process (analysis of the situation at the beginning of the work, correctness of method, continuity of the project, respect of timing) and the result (assessment of achievement of the objectives, coherence of project-result, quality of final product produced, possible developments). The tools used for evaluation will be questionnaires (for students, teachers and external collaborators), tests to check the learning process, monitoring of the response of the family members, of the local community (e.g. number of visitors on the web site or at the exhibition, action taken by the local authorities in favour of monitoring the students whose families are abroad). All the activities will be monitored and documented also through the project meetings, the reports written by the coordinator, the regular compilation of a register-diary of the project, describing the various stages from the planning to the evaluation.

We will keep the evidence of the number of project products and of the articles published in the local media regarding the activities of the project.

4.We will give a special attention to disseminating and using the results, experience and end products amongst the participating institutions, other institutions and the local community:

The project proposes a constant sharing of results among all the participants:

1. with the other schools: through information technology, through project meetings, through the exchange of material collected or produced.

2. with the other organizations involved: through e-mail contacts and especially meetings in specific phases of development of the project that include joint initiatives (e.g cultural evenings with people from the partner countries who are integrated into the different local realities).

3. with the local community: through the involvement of those interested in conferences, public debates, linguistic-cultural beginner courses and other activities (including informative articles in the local press);

For all the categories above the video and the collection of events are results that can be easily exported and consulted, also as testimonies of life experiences. The Blog offers another possibility for communicating, exchanging ideas, offering food for thought, giving information (also in different languages).

We will also

§ organize special places in which the project products are being displayed;

§ organize an International conference at the end of the project, conference which will be presented in all local, national and international networks.

§ display the content , activities and results of the project on the project Blog and on the partner schools websites

5.Role and tasks of all institutions involved in the Partnership.

Even if the coordinating school is the reference point for any communication, problem or decision, the partner institutes work together in the Project on an equal and cooperative basis. The planning and evaluation phases are shared and are organized together, with specific tasks (e.g. updating of the Blog , technical production of materials) given to each school on the basis of its resources, proposals, characteristics. Obviously, it is not expected that all the schools will carry out all the planned activities exactly in the same way: each will be invited to select and especially investigate some areas of interest or specific facets of the theme. But no school will ever work in isolation: its activity will always be useful for an exchange and it will contribute to the research through the preparation of material reflecting its own local reality and international themes as well.The data collected, processed and summarised on a local level will be sent to all the participants of the Project and will become material to be consulted by the whole group, useful both for the preparation of the end product and for the building up of a complete mind map related to the chosen topic.

At the same time, there will be mixed work groups (made up of students and teachers from different countries) that will keep in touch thanks to information technology and will plan the same study courses.

All the partner schools will organise and/or participate in project meetings (transnational mobility) according to the established calendar of the project.

Mihai Eminescu National College will organize the first and the final project meetings, the last meeting being an International Conference with the participation of all partners and with guests from institutions interested in the project. It will be in charge with the final common reports , with the common questionnaire, with the e-groups for teachers and students, with the Blog , with the CD with materials for the e-magazine and with the volume including the e-magazine and the materials presented at the Conference. It will send the volume in e-format, on a DVD, to all partners so as to be multiplied and printed in each country.

All teams will participate at the project meetings organized in Romania, Estonia, Turkey and Bulgaria.

All teams will contribute to preparing all the materials and common products: the common questionnaire, the translation of the questionnaires, the processing of the data. They will also contribute with materials for the common e-magazine with photos, articles, students’ and teachers’ testimonies. They will send materials for the common report and they will send their mid-term reports and final reports to their national agencies.

They will all contribute with materials for the volume published after the international conference. They will print the volume which will remain I the school libraries to be studied by all people interested.

Each partner will contribute to making the common questionnaire during the first project meeting.

Each partner will give the questionnaire to students, parents, teachers, local community . The results will be sent to the project coordinator who will write a common report.

The results will be discussed during the second project meeting. Starting from the results the activities of the project will be adapted so as to best meet the expectations of the project.

Each partner will organize activities with parents according to the plan of activities.

4 partners will organize project meeting.

The first and the last project meetings will be held in Romania, organized by the coordinating institution.

The second , the third and the fourth meetings will be organized by :

ÖZEL ÜFTADE LİSESİ, TR
Kaiu Põhikool, ES
Romance Languages Secondary School, BG

All the partners will contribute to making the common products ( e-group, blog, common questionnaire, translation of questionnaires, processing data, reports, e-magazine, volume for the International Conference, articles in the local newspapers )

Each team will organize displays of the project products and brochures meant to present the objectives and the results of the project.

6. The communication and cooperation between the participating institutions

Apart from the project meetings, all contact between the participants will be made using information and communication technology: telephone, e-mail, Internet. These methods will be used during all the phases of the project (planning, implementation, evaluation, dissemination of the results) and will be used both for individual communication (personal e-mails for example) and group contact (forum, blogging,).

Students and teachers will be encouraged to improve their information technology skills, whilst the creation of a web site will be one of the main objectives of the project.

The communication for writing the project has very well been ensured by the e-group com1family@yahoogroups.com which has been created since the announcement of the call for partnership.

7. Active involvement of pupils and/or staff

The students, their parents and teachers will be all involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of activities. The students will constitute the main link with the families. They will discuss on the content of the questionnaire and will give the questionnaire to their parents. The project coordinators will give the questionnaire to all the teachers from the partner schools. Then they will all draft a document to be sent to the international coordinator who will draft a common document which will be presented to all partners. When getting the final document it will be presented to students , parents and teachers who answered the questionnaire.

The students and the teachers will be fully involved in organizing the common activities with the parents and trying to find the best solutions to making parents aware of the necessity of being close to school for the benefit of their children.

This way the teachers will try to elaborate strategies of involving in the school activities not only the students and the parents involved in the project but all parents from school.

During the project meetings the parents from the countries organizing the meetings will be invited to attend the activities and to contribute to the materials produced together.

The students are already involved, having witnessed and contributed to the “birth” of the Project. Each of them will take part with precise tasks according to their own interests, capabilities and personal objectives.

Not all the students or all the schools will necessarily concentrate on the same aspects of the chosen theme, even if they will all have to be able to benefit from the results obtained from the different contributions, assembled and coordinated in the final phase as planned in the project.

The important thing is that it is always clear, during the Project, “who does what” and “why they do it”, that the division of the tasks is planned correctly, in a functional way and that each group or student is responsible for his own area of activity, able to plan, produce, evaluate, under the guidance, obviously, of teachers and experts and with the help of collaborators from their own and from foreign countries. The students should also be involved in turn and whenever possible, in specific coordination tasks, “important” jobs such as writing some pages of the Project diary or representing the school, together with members of the teaching staff, at the project meetings with the partner countries (moments of planning and evaluation) and in the moments of contact with local authorities, the territory, the community. They will assure the direct collaboration with their families.

Role of the Associated partners: The three associated partners are experienced in organizing international Conferences. They will give a helping hand and will assure the space for the Conference.

8. Integration of the Partnership into the curriculum and/or ongoing activities

The varied abilities used in the Project (communicative, social, methodological) can be used in any other learning context. The positive influence on the knowledge of the English language should be considerable as it is a language that is studied in all the schools participating in the Project and is used as the exchange language (even if the use of other languages will be encouraged when possible). Many of the activities involved in the Project will be carried out during school time, in the hours used for the different subjects involved; some will require extra time, outside school hours, a responsibility that the students taking part have agreed to accept, aware of the value of an experience of this type.

As the Partnership focuses on pupils’ involvement, the project activities will be integrated in the curriculum . The topics will be discussed during the educational classes, during the classes of civic education, European culture, geography, history. The students will prepare presentations of their schools to be shared with their partners. They will write essays related to the topics discussed along the partnership.

9. As the partners are coming from cultures with which the students are less familiar the intercultural dialogue will constitute a major issue of the project. It is important to find out what we have in common and what differentiate us. Mainly during the project meetings the students and the teachers will work together and will familiarize with the local culture of the host country.

10. Our project will fully meet the Comenius priorities. For this we intend to take the following measures:

§ Regarding the priority to promote early language learning, multilingual comprehension and/or Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)- the language of communication being English, both students and teachers will have the opportunity to improve their speaking skills by contributing to the development of the project by exchanging ideas via the e-group and by working at the materials which will be in English. The common magazine and the Blog will contain articles written in English and in all the languages of the project. The magazine and the Blog will contain pictures taken from all the partner countries.

§ In case there are students with a disability or other special needs we will encourage them to take part in the Partnership giving them tasks and valorising their products.

§ As all schools are coming from disadvantaged socio-economic regions, the partnership will help the participants better understand that we share common values and common problems. That means the partners will try to find common solutions to these problems, which is in fact the main aim of the project..

§ We will make sure that girls/women and boys/men have equal access to the Partnership as all schools are mixed-schools in which learn together boys and girls.

§ The idea of the project started exactly from the needs of children of occupational travellers and of mobile workers. That is why our project will try to identify and then find solutions to their problems.

~~13.~~1. Activity calendar (not including mobility activities – see question 15)

Please summarise in the table below the planned Partnership activities for each of the institutions in the Partnership. Please present the activities for both school years 2007/08 and 2008/09. The eligibility period of activities starts on 1 October 2007 and goes on until 31 July 2009. You can add lines to the table if necessary.

Approximate date (month/year)	Activity description (describe the nature of the activity planned)	Actors involved (identify the institution(s) and, if relevant, the function of the individual(s) involved in the activity, e.g. teaching staff, management staff , associated partners etc)
October 2007	Organizing the teams in each school; setting up of the e-group for students in which they will be invited to introduce themselves; creating the project Blog	Coordinators, teachers, students
October 2007	Preparing the first project meeting: presentations of the partner schools, travel arrangements, accommodation	All teams Baia Mare team will organize the accommodation and all the necessary arrangements
October 2007	First project meeting in Baia Mare, Romania- Presentation of the partners; Fixing the calendar of the project ; Detailed planning of activities. Elaboration of Common Questionnaire for teachers, parents and students meant to find out the situation in the field of cooperation between school and families.	All teams participating at the meeting
November 2007	Translation of the questionnaire in the native language of participants. The students will be encouraged to present their countries, native places via the e-group.	All teams Students
December 2007 –February 2008	The questionnaire is given to students, parents and teachers. The students will be encouraged to speak about the way their parents reacted when they were invited to answer the questionnaire. Mid term reports for the national agencies.	All teams Students Project coordinators
March 2008	Each team will make a report, focussing on the problems they had identified by processing the answers. The report will be sent to the international coordinator who will elaborate a common document. The common document will be improved via the e-group exchanges.	International coordinator and national coordinators
April 2008	Preparations for the meeting from Turkey.	All teams The team from USAK will organize the accommodation and all the necessary arrangements
May 2008	Project meeting in Turkey. Students and teachers will share their experience in the project and the impact upon their schools. Working on a common magazine: establishing the main topics and type of materials	All people ( teachesr and students) participating at the meeting
June 2008	Collecting materials : pictures, articles, testimonies from each country while working with the questionnaires( making it, translating it, giving it to the target groups, processing it, identifying the main problems)	All teams
July 2008	Sending the final materials to the international coordinator . Publishing the main ideas on the Blog.	Project coordinators
August 2008	Drafting the common report. Sending the report to all partners and then to the National agencies.	International coordinator
September 2008	Presentation of the final report to students, teachers and parents.	All teams
October 2008	Preparation for the project meeting from Estonia. Preparing the e-version for the common magazine ( on a CD)	All teams The international coordinator
October 2008	Project meeting in Estonia when , starting from the identified problems, the partners will try to find solutions to them . New activities will be agreed upon. Discussion upon the final e-version of the magazine.	All teams participating at the project meeting
November 2008-February 2009	Organizing meetings and workshops with parents in all partner countries	All teams
March 2009	Presenting the mid-term report to the national agencies	Project coordinators
March 2009	Project meeting in Bulgaria . Establishing the main issues and for the international conference.	The Bulgarian team and coordinators
April 2009	Preparing materials for the final reunion that will be a Conference on the theme “ Involving parents in school life”.	All teams
May 2009	International Conference with the participation of all teams and special guests. Baia Mare, Romania	Baia Mare team All teams Guests
June-July 2009	Publishing a volume with the materials presented at the conference together with the articles from the magazine	The international coordinator
July 2009	Drafting the final report and sending it to each team.	The international coordinator
July 2009	Drafting the final reports and sending them to the national agencies	Project coordinators

~~14.~~2. Expected results, including products (add lines if necessary). At least 1 product should be jointly produced by all partners.

Approximate date (month/year)	Description of results
October 2007	Setting up of an E-group for students
October 2007	Creating a Blog for the project
October 2007	Common questionnaire to be translated in all languages and to be given to all the parties involved( students, parents, teachers)
June 2008	Materials for the common magazine
July-August 2008	Displays presenting the main objectives of the project and activities
October 2008	Common magazine on CD with articles, pictures and testimonies from each school
April 2009	Materials for the blog. Description of the meetings with parents
June 2009	Volume comprising the contribution of all teams to the Conference and to the e-magazine on CD
July 2009	Common report of the project
July 2009	Collection of all the Articles published in the local media presenting the results of the project
July 2009	Final Reports to be sent to the national agencies

~~15.~~3. Mobility activities

Please present in the table below all mobilities that the participating institutions have planned for the Partnership duration (2007/08 and 2008/09). Add lines if necessary. Please note that mobility activities can only take place between institutions receiving funding to participate in the Partnership, or to events organised by Lifelong Learning Programme projects or networks, e.g. Comenius Network conferences. When planning your mobility activities, please consult section D (Grant request) to check the types of funding available.

Mobility description[1]

Sending partner

Sending country

Receiving partner

Receiving country

Approx starting date (month/ year)

Duration

(days)

Nr of pupils

+ nr of pupils with special needs

Nr of staff[2]

+ nr of staff with special needs

Nr of persons from associated partners (if relevant)

Total number of persons

Project meeting

1.Romance Languages Secondary School

2. Kaiu Põhikool

3. KAUNO MILIKONIU VIDURINE MOKYKLA

4. Kuyupınar Ovaboyu İlköğretimOkulu

5. ÖZEL ÜFTADE LİSESİ

Mihai Eminescu National College

Romania

October 2007

Project meeting

1.Romance Languages Secondary School

2. Kaiu Põhikool

3. KAUNO MILIKONIU VIDURINE MOKYKLA

4. Kuyupınar Ovaboyu İlköğretimOkulu

5. Mihai Eminescu National College

ÖZEL ÜFTADE LİSESİ

Turkey

May 2008

Project meeting

1.Romance Languages Secondary School

2 Mihai Eminescu National College

3. KAUNO MILIKONIU VIDURINE MOKYKLA

4. Kuyupınar Ovaboyu İlköğretimOkulu

5. ÖZEL ÜFTADE LİSESİ

Kaiu Põhikool

Estonia

October 2008

Prroject meeting

1. . Mihai Eminescu National College

2. Kaiu Põhikool

3. KAUNO MILIKONIU VIDURINE MOKYKLA

4. Kuyupınar Ovaboyu İlköğretimOkulu

5. ÖZEL ÜFTADE LİSESİ

Romance Languages Secondary School

Bulgaria

March 2009

Final project meeting

1.Romance Languages Secondary School

2. Kaiu Põhikool

3. KAUNO MILIKONIU VIDURINE MOKYKLA

4. Kuyupınar Ovaboyu İlköğretimOkulu

5. ÖZEL ÜFTADE LİSESİ

Mihai Eminescu National College

Romania

May 2009

TOTAL

[1] E.g. project meeting, class exchange, teacher exchange, headteacher study visit, placement

[2] In the case of mobility involving persons which special needs, enter accompanying persons such as parents, guardians or carers in this column