Wellbeing@school - the result of projects I am not scared and Stay@School

Anca Colibaba & Andreea Cleminte – Fundatia EuroEd, RO

These projects have been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

STRATEGIES TO OPTIMIZE THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

“Stay@School” (Project Number: 2011-1-IT1-LEO05-01961, CUP: G32F11000680006 )

prevent early school leaving

http://projects.pixel-online.org/stayatschool/info/

“I Am Not Scared” (KA1 Policy Cooperation and Innovation - 511645-LLP-1-2010-1-IT-KA1-

KA1SCR)

prevent and combat the school bullying

http://iamnotscared.pixel-online.org/info/index.php

CONTEXT & OBJECTIVE

Context

The bullying phenomenon is a main challenge, that all European educational systems have to deal with. Despite many initiatives:•The main information and experiences related to the understanding of bullying have been developed through a mainly Top-Bottom approach.•The standard of the researches and initiatives is not homogeneous at European level •National approaches are still prevalent and a European shared perspective is still lacking

Objective

The project intends to identify the best European strategies to prevent and combat the bullying phenomenon and involve Secondary school and Vocational Education teachers, Directors Pupils, Parents and key policy makers in the field of education in a common reflection based on a Bottom-Up approach for a transnational sharing of the dynamics that can cause the emerging and consolidating of the bullying phenomenon and of the most effective strategies and behaviours to tackle it available at European Level

Target groups

• 11 Romanian schools, 22 teachers ,11 school principals, 55 parents, over 100 students

• 15 experts (psychological counsellors, psychologists, school counsellors), from 3 counties from Romania

• 8 Policy Makers (with 14 representatives)

• “Octav Bancila“ Art High School, Iasi• Economic High School, Iasi• “Grigore Moisil” Computer Science High School,

Iasi • EuroEd Primary School, Iasi• Nicolina School, Iasi• “Constantin Păunescu” Special School, Iasi

• “Vasile Pavelcu“ School, Iasi• “Vasile Alecsandri“ High School, Iasi• “Virgil Madgearu“ High School, Iasi• “Al. Vlahuta“ High School, Sendriceni,

Botosani• Arts and Trades School, Husi, Vaslui

• Iasi County School Inspectorate

• Iasi Teacher Training Department

• The prefecture of Iasi County• lasi City Hall

• Iasi County Centre for Resources and Educational Assistance• Vrancea County Centre for Resources and Educational

Assistance• Iasi Department of Analysis and Crime Prevention• The Direction for Social Services and Child Protection

ACTIVITIES

A) Collection of Information•The aim of the Work Package is to is to achieve a better understanding of the bullying phenomenon carrying out an empiric based research at transnational level, aiming at identifying the state of art in the comprehension and strategic tackling of bullying and violence and intolerance at school

B) Case Studies•The aim of the Work package is to promote a Bottom Up approach to the understanding of the bullying phenomenon through the carrying out of Case studies taking the form of small research projects aiming at analyzing bullying episodes from all the possible point of view of the different actors involved.

C) Transnational Discussion•The aim of the Work package is to involve the teachers participating into the project (meaning those interviewed for the completion of the Case studies) in a transnational discussion, aimed at enhancing a peer to peer based knowledge exchange experience, on the them of bullying prevention and tackling.

D) European Strategy to Combat Bullying•The aim of the Work package is to use the information and opinions collected during the project to create the European Strategy for Combating Bullying that will be published as the main comprehensive and tangible output of the project.

Resources on preventing school violence

Project websitehttp://iamnotscared.pixel-online.org

hosts

•450 Review of publications addressing the bullying phenomenon available in the 9 countries involved•90 Good practices experiences (projects, activities) in the field of school bullying available in partner countries and English languages •9 National reports, concerning the situation of school bullying in the countries involved•100 Case studies aiming at analyzing bullying episodes from all the possible point of view of the different actors (Students, Teachers, schools' directors, parents of the students, and key policy makers)•9 National Reports presenting the results of the activities described above and defining each country state of art

To be uploaded:•a Transnational Report presenting in a comparative logic, similarities and main differences concerning the prevention of school bullying

Case studies aiming at analyzing bullying episodes

12 Case studies have been collected in Romania, translated into English and uploaded on the project website. The cases were developed by the teachers involved organizing discussions/debates on real bullying situation with victims, bully students, other students, other teachers, school directors, parents of the pupils involved, supporting experts and policy makers

• BULLYING - A lesson just shouldn’t be learned

• Violence – discovered by students, forgotten by teachers

• First days of school - violence between students

• Analysis of school bullying•  

• The social background - source of bullying

• Case of Dysfunctional Behaviour in Primary School

• The use of drugs among students

• The bully bullied

• The school responsible for the safety of the students

• Let’s say NO to Violence!

• Empowering students to prevent violent behaviour

• Online Bullying

Causes of school violence

- adolescents are exposed to a series of violent events

- financial misunderstanding which later degenerated into violent conflict

- social differences - financial problems within the family

- come from homes that use physical punishment to discipline

- social background - urban versus rural

- repulsive behaviour of some students

- group influence

- inner conflicts and frustrations / intimidations between students

- poor education and social environment

- precocious physical growth helping to dominate other students

- teachers tolerates signs of violence/ minor incidents which later can lead to unfortunate situations

- lack of school secure and safe environment for students

- lack of strict rules

- lack of involvement of the students in social activities

Development of a school-wide bullying policy to:

- Raise awareness of teachers and students

- Create a framework for responding to bullying

- Develop classroom rules against bullying

- Develop cooperative learning projects that encourage teamwork and reduce social isolation

- Create activities or assignments that teach problem-solving or conflict-resolution skills

- Participate in role-playing or other activities to help students understand the effects and consequences of the violent behaviour

Photos from the activities held in schools on the development and discussions on the case studies

Transnational Discussion

The aim is to involve the teachers participating into the project (meaning those interviewed for the completion of the Case studies) in a transnational discussion, aimed at enhancing a peer to peer based knowledge exchange experience, on the them of bullying prevention and tackling.

Results:

•3 transnational online discussions

•Involvement of 4 teachers, 3 MA students who want to become teachers and 3 staff members•66 comments done to the case studies from the other countries•55 comments received to the Romanian case studies

The "I am not scared" Project Partners Blog

http://letsmakethechange12.blogspot.ro/2012/04/hi-everyone-as-requested-blog-for-us.html

CONTEXT & OBJECTIVE

Context

•A common challenge for the European school systems is the prevention of early school leaving.

Objective

•The aim of the Stay@School project is to provide school teachers with the necessary skills to prevent early school leaving using the strategies and tools developed in the framework of the School Inclusion project

Target groups

• The project aims to involve 140 secondary school teachers based in Italy, Belgium, Romania and Spain.

• Involvement of 9 schools and 39 teachers from Romania

Types of Schools involved• High Schools (Tehnoton College Iasi, Dimitrie Cantemir

HighSchool Iasi, Vasile Alecsandri HighSchool Iasi)• Vocational High Schools (Economic HighSchool Iasi, Nicolina

HighSchool Iasi) • School for children with special needs (Constantin Paunescu

School Iasi)• Secondary School (Stefan cel Mare si Sfant, Drobovat, Iasi)• Primary and lower secondary school (Nicolae Iorga School

Iasi, Dolhesti School Iasi)

School dropout – a phenomenon of the Romanian and European education system

One of the most important indicators of the efficiency of an educational system is the school dropout rate;

This reveals the capacity of the school system to integrate and keep the students within, to ensure access and support in order for them to finalize at least the compulsory school level;

Due to the acceleration of the ageing process in Europe and to a decline in the working population, the European Union will increasingly count on the young generation

School dropout rate

The project main activities

A) Teachers Involvement•Involvement of 140 secondary school teachers in the 4 European countries •ResultCreation of a network of 140 teachers involved in the prevention of early school leavingFrom Romania 9 schools and 39 teachers have been involvedTeachers Forum to comment and receive further information on each of the modules. Teachers are invited to use the Forum to contact the authors of the course. On the Forum, the authors of each of the course modules answer questions and provide clarification or further information about the contents of the module they have developed.

The project main activities

B) Improvement of the School Inclusion Portal•Review, update and complete the School Inclusion Portal. ResultsInsertion of new data in the database of publications on the topic of scholastic drop out – over 400 publications•Further collection of direct experiences of teachers in preventing and tackling the early school leaving – over 100 experiences•Creation of a collection of reviews of training courses for teachers on the topic of the prevention of early school leaving – over 60 examples of training courses•Translation of the training course on the prevention of early school leaving available on the School Inclusion Portal

http://schoolinclusion.pixel-online.org/training_initiatives.php

The project main activitiesC) Testing

•Delivery of the online training course on the prevention of early school leaving to 140 school teachers

The course is organized in 5 modules:

Module 1: Identification of Students at Risk•aims to help teachers and other educational professionals to identify young students at risk of dropping out of education.

Module 2: Communicationprovides practical proposals on how to facilitate communication with students, parents and colleagues in order to decrease the drop out rate at school.

Module 3: Teaching methods•focuses on effective teaching strategies that foster the active involvement of all students in educational pathways.

Module 4: Educational Evaluation and early school leaving prevention•focuses on Educational evaluation because teachers need to be acquainted with the modern meaning of evaluation, evaluation types and forms, models, techniques and tools in order to become able to use them effectively in their school classes to achieve, among other educational objectives, the prevention of early school leaving.

Module 5: External support and cooperation•examines external resources and supports available for teachers and students to help them in the prevention of early school leaving.

Result•Acquisition by school teachers of the skills to prevent and tackle early school leaving

The project main activities

D) Development of educational materials•Involvement of teachers in hands-on experience (learning by doing) aimed to test the skills and abilities acquired during the course, through the creation of education materials on the prevention of early school leaving Result•Collection of educational products on the prevention of early school leaving•Each group of teachers, properly assisted by experts and coordinated by the partners will create:a product addressed to students in order to raise awareness on the issue of dropping out of schoola product aimed at teachers, in order to help them identify and prevent dropping out of school

Stay@School Project website:

http://projects.pixel-online.org/stayatschool/info/project.php

I am not scared Project website:

http://iamnotscared.pixel-online.org/info/project.php

Contact: Andreea Cleminte, andreea.cleminte@euroed.ro