School Still Plays / Училището все още има място!

The SCHOOL STILL PLAYS project intends to plan and develop – under the supervision of the competent public authorities - specific experimental actions, at policy level, to prevent and reduce the school dropout through the realization of research, training, evaluation and school activities focused on life skills. It is based on the Commission Communication “Tackling early school leaving: A key contribution to the Europe 2020 agenda”.

The partnership involves policy makers in order to favor an early detection and support of youngsters with problems in their school careers and to link young people with whom can provide support and guidance and ease reintegration. The project also includes stakeholders working in formal education and by organisations working in informal/non-formal education.

SSP is one of the 4 projects co-financed by EACEA in all Europe in 2014 for realising innovative actions in school education at policy level (under KA1- ECETB subprogramme).

The causes of early school leaving are linked to the social family situations that encompasses family, school and peer group, in relation to all social-pedagogical area that includes the ability to achieve certain educational standards identified as referential models, to the physiological and psycho-pathological individual.

The dropout shows in general a suffering, given by the difference between the students and their teachers, between students and their subjects, namely the minimum knowledge needed and the "rules" of the school and the adult world.

The factors that cause the drop out of the educational context derive from poor performances or learning difficulties existing since the early school years, from unsuitable or no planning of the leisure and individual time combined with a limited participation in the activities carried out within the school. In some cases, weak verbal skills are associated with these factors.

Therefore, it is a clear that the policy makers and the education system would need to be able to offer viable and shared alternatives to prevent to school dropout ahead of time. In order to do so, parameters are needed to assess the particular "uneasiness school " that underlies behaviours potentially “deviant” and it would be useful to have common indicators, qualitative and quantitative, for a quick and accurate detection of these factors, in order to develop policies to prevent students dropout.

However, the SSP partnership will be very challenged throughout the entire project, considering that:

Early school leaving phenomenon is not identified only with the drop out, which, however, remains the most dramatic phenomenon in a process of breaking (cultural, social, existential). Causes of dispersion, therefore, are not only those attributable to the socio - economic or personal distress areas.
School drop out is a multi-dimensional problem, including as relevant actors the individual, the individual in the group, the world of work and Institutions.

and the very complex tasks consisting in:

Developing of European-shared methodological teaching techniques and procedures for monitoring and detection of learning difficulties and for the identification of those 'at risk‘, which can be adapted to very different regional contexts, even in the same country/Impact at national and European level
Embedding in schools curricula contents and methodologies to let students acquire life skills through the education of the emotions.

Objectives

The project partnership, based on the respective roles and members’ responsibilities, intends to experiment territorial actions to encourage and thinning the dynamics of contact between the school system and youth population (11/18 years old) in order to reduce the phenomenon of school dropouts.

The aim is thus to consolidate the role played by all the educational actors and stakeholder by:

contributing to the redefinition of school curricula with specific reference to life skills by testing of non-formal education methodologies;
experimenting new didactic approach and guidance services at all educational levels, based on emotional competences and life skills;
experimenting training paths addressed to school teachers;
experimenting mentoring and counselling services through the strengthening of local partnership networks in education and training;
developing models for preventing and fighting early school leaving to be replicated and exploited, focusing on inclusion.
establishing a network of "process facilitators," to be made available to the institutions for consultation, proposal, design, monitoring and evaluation of curricula and training programs in relation to stakeholders’ needs and wishes (young people, teachers, employers, local authorities, universities , etc.).
transferring methodologies and effective tools for realising policy recommendations to fight ESL and school dropout;

The" life skills” will be the innovative element in the world of education, they represent “the emotional dimension of the curriculum”. Recognising them will means establishing a model for the update, the qualification and the permanent training of educators; to develop a shared dialogue among the institutions and the labor market in order to ensure the continual adaptation of curricula to the work processes for maintaining and developing the employability levels.

Outputs

The project aims to deliver the following intellectual outputs throughout its impelemntation:

RESEARCH REPORT ON EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING

It contains national results aimed to be shared among the partners and national stakeholder, in order to identify common, shared models and good practices.

BENCHMARK REPORT ON BEST PRACTICES

It contains national results aiming to be shared among the partners, in order to reflect on common and shared models and good practices.

PEDAGOGIC MODEL BASED ON LIFE SKILLS AND EMOTIONAL COMPETENCES
TRAINING COURSE FOR TEACHERS

The course of 24 hours is realized with a practical approach.

FINAL PEDAGOGICAL MODEL AND RELATED TOOLS

It contains Educational materials produced both in electronic and in printed format.

GUIDELINES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DROPOUT REDUCTION

Promotion at national level of the training course through the website, during the stakeholders forums, through national face to face meeting and local events, publication of articles, newsletters, etc