EON

EQ

UA

L OP

PO

RT

UN

I TI E

S N

ET

WO

RK

I NG

IN A NUTSHELL

EON-schools want• to develop policies and plans to provide equal educational

opportunities

• to help prevent pupils from dropping out

• to promote wellbeing for all pupils in our schools

for the following target groups:• those who come into our schools with social and emotional

difficulties

• those from migrant families

• those presenting with challenging behaviours

• those lacking motivation to succeed

• those whose exceptional abilities are poorly catered for

2

WHAT?

We shall seek to learn from each other's expertise and jointly develop new strategies focussing on:

• meeting the needs of pupils with emotional, social, behavioural and motivational difficulties

• meeting the specific needs of migrant and minority group pupils

• developing curricular and extra-curricular programmes to meet the challenge of providing for exceptionally gifted pupils, whose additional needs are too often neglected

• creating opportunities to develop entrepreneurial skills in our schools for youngsters of all abilities

3

HOW & WHY

We shall build on the following strategies which have proved successful and sustainable in our current ETHOS project

• High quality international master classes on specific topics for students, raising motivation levels and creating formats that can be adopted by the individual schools

• Research in all partner schools leading to detailed analysis and recommendations for improvement across the network

• Conferences involving students, teachers and head teachers working together to share best practices, approaches and strategies across the network

• Dissemination of the findings on the website of the network, to local educational authorities and beyond

4

OBJECTI

VES AND

STRAT

EGY

5

1. EMOTIONAL, SOCIAL & BEHAVIOURAL PROBLEMSRationale:

• a rising number of pupils needing special assistance with emotional and social problems

• these problems lead to challenging behaviour in class, bringing down grades and reducing motivation

• family situations (e.g. divorce, unemployment, etc), identity seeking (outward appearance, social media,...), cyber bullying, etc. tend to diminish the chances of many young people

• More and more pupils seem to take medication to keep their behaviour in class under control

6

OBJECTIVES & STRATEGY

Objectives:

• to get a clearer view on the extent and nature of these problems by finding out the needs of this target group

• to improve chances in education by meeting the needs of these pupils

Strategy:

• questionnaires in the partner schools

• compare best practices in the network’s schools

• a topical conference should result in a ‘package’ summarising measures and provisions that have proved effective and which may be applicable in more of our schools.

7

2. MIGRANT PROBLEMS

Rationale:

• The dropout figures for migrant pupils tend to be high despite efforts by governments and local authorities.

• Which factors are responsible and what can we do to raise the chances of success for this target group?

8

OBJECTIVES & STRATEGY

• to improve the chances in education by finding out the factors influencing the rate of success and by comparing best practices

• to overcome language barriers by developing provisions and coaching formats

• to fight prejudice, racism and xenophobia by creating programmes to create open-mindedness towards other cultures and languages

9

3. HIGHLY GIFTED PUPILS

Rationale:

• Often this group of pupils tends to be forgotten in the special needs planning of schools. Nevertheless this target group needs special attention because these pupils are often not presented with sufficient challenge, or motivated to make the most of their abilities.

Objectives and strategy:

• to improve the motivation of these students by bringing them together in high quality international master classes

• to provide models for schools to enhance provisions for highly gifted students by listening to the “student voice”

10

4. ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Rationale:

• Our schools seem generally weak in developing entrepreneurial and wider leadership skills. We are seeking to address this weakness in a way that benefits both individual students and their wider communities.

Objectives and strategy:

• to improve the weak quality of these skills by learning from each other’s best practices and by creating entrepreneurship laboratories’

• to aim at developing programmes which can be adopted and adapted in our network schools – and which can lead to recognition and accreditation.

11

APPROACH

12

BROADER INVOLVEMENT

• A strength of this project will be the joint working on the (sub)themes by students and teachers during conferences and master classes in which "STUDENT VOICE" will contribute significantly to the development of school policies and strategies to meet the needs of the target groups. This has proved remarkably effective before in our ETHOS project.

• Also, experts from universities, commercial enterprises, experts on migration issues, etc will be invited to contribute to the research, conferences and master classes.

• The research will be carried out in close cooperation with wider school communities.

13

RESULTS AND OUTCOMES

September/October 2013

• Agreement on methodology to be used in researching the different project topics (social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, dealing with highly talented students, the needs of students from migrant groups, developing entrepreneurial skills): developing questionnaires, collecting best practices, agreement on evaluation, sharing of results and dissemination.

October 2013

• Finalizing programmes and time schedules for conferences, Master classes and topical conferences

October 2013 – April 2015

• Conferences on (1) how to motivate highly gifted students, (2) dealing with students from migrant backgrounds, (3) entrepreneurship and (4) promoting equal opportunities in a Europe in crisis

14

RESULTS AND OUTCOMES 2January 2014 – April 2015• Master classes for highly gifted students on the following topics:

game programming, mathematics, science, sports, drama & arts)October 2013 – April 2015• Production of research reports on the different topics, including

recommendations on how to improve school policies and a compilation of best practices and booklets with practical suggestions for adoption by the schools.

February 2015• A topical conference focussing on social, emotional and behavioural

problemsApril 2015• Final project report with the results of the project including

evaluations, research results and suggestions for programmes, lesson plans etc to increase the motivation and success chances of students in our target groups.

May 2015• Publication of all evaluations and other documents on the network’s

website and wider dissemination

15

NETWORK CONFERENCES

OCT 2013: (Head) teachers’ Conference and project meeting in Wittekind Gymnasium (DE) on ‘how to motivate highly talented students?’ Publication of a booklet with best practices

MAY 2014: Network conference and project meeting in Lycée Michel Rodange (LU) dealing with students from migrant backgrounds

OCT 2014: (Head) teachers’ Conference and project meeting in Bægsværd Gymnasium (DK) on ‘developing and fostering entrepreneurship in our schools’ (students?)

APRIL 2015: Network conference and project meeting in Instituto de Educación Secundaria Miguel Catalán (ES) on social, emotional and behavioural problems

16

MASTER CLASSES

Sweden March 2014: mathematics

Netherlands March 2014: technological innovations

Finland Nov 2014: ‘game programming’

Austria Jan 2015: sciences

17

WHAT IF…?

• Adjustment of objectives and output in Germany• frequency and nature of conferences?• alternative fund raising?• new bid call 2014? >> new EC programme!ERASMUS FOR ALL = 1 name! Comenius, Leonardo, ...- http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/- more funding for study, training, teaching &

volunteering work- for us: exchange good practices; co-operate with

businesses > innovation in education- reducing programmes with limited systemic impact- collaborate to enhance the impact of EU support and

promote synergies between different forms of cooperation

18