ERASMUS+ HOW CHILDREN LEARN

Erasmus+ project “How children learn”

Extract from proposal form

 

The project has developed out of an initial identified need for schools to adopt new learning strategies and innovative ways to prepare pupils for life, study and work, relevant to the rapid changes of the 21st century. We need to respond to the immediate challenge of improving and bringing more relevance to the early years and primary learning experience. 

 

The project outcomes will make a significant contribution to the competences and resources available to teachers and the wider school communities. We will increase and build on the international experience for two of the partners following a previous Comenius project and bring in other schools new to international partnerships.

 

Impacts will be far-reaching and significant. An immediate impact for all the partners will be knowledge and experience gained by investigating best educational practice in action in the partner regions which have been specifically chosen to demonstrate innovative methods and contexts for organising early years and primary learning.

 

All the partners are very enthusiastic and committed to working together and each school is keen to contribute to all the project activities and take a leading role in specific parts of the work programme.

 

The partnership consists of six schools:

Kirkhill Nursery and Primary School, Aberdeen, Scotland;(applicant school)

Manstadskole, Frdrikstad, Norway;

Nysatersforskola, Mölnlycke, Sweden;

Kausalankoulu, Kausala, Finland;

Prof.Wassenberghskoalle, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands;

CEIP Santa Bàrbara, Benifaió, Spain.

 

We will investigate certain cross focus themes e.g. use of business contexts, how to recognise and assess learning which arises out of play and informal learning.Three groups of skills will be the focus of our investigations - Basic, Transversal, Global.

Basic skills:  Linguistic and language, verbal and non-verbal communication, digital, mathematical, scientific;

Transversal skills:  Flexibility, resilience, collaboration, co-operation, empathy, teamwork, integration, creativity, sustainability-consciousness;

Global skills:  European awareness, democratic awareness, business awareness, entrepreneurship.

 

We also want to prepare children adequately for the reality of living and working in Europe with open borders and to increase the understanding of pupils and teachers of the benefits of being part of a European family.

 

The objectives of the “How Children Learn” Early Years partnership are to:

1 improve the way we meet the core needs of pupils – to be solution-focused, independent learners, resilient and better prepared for change in life, study and work, both today and in the future;

2 enable teachers to be better equipped with improved skills, competences, teaching materials and pedagogical resources;

3 actively encourage the pupils and the teachers to develop a European perspective, belonging to the "European family"

4 work towards the recognition and wider adoption of project results and outcomes using local, regional and national networks, and international associations;

5 identify, by the end of the project, which local/regional/international organisations are interested in our work, and how further funding can be harnessed to carry on this work.

 

We will use external experts in the field at significant points in the project. They will help us to develop structured enquiries and look in detail at learning outcomes, including those derived from play and informal learning situations, and how to recognise and assess these. We also want to develop a stronger emphasis on multilingualism and to examine the place of non-verbal communication within the learning experiences of young children.

 

The headteacher at Kirkhill will lead the development of quality indicators, which will be started during the preparatory phase of the project. At the first project meeting these will be discussed and agreed. At this meeting there will also be expert input from Brian Boyd, Emeritus Professor of the University of Strathclyde, who will assist in this discussion and subsequently provide support to the project.

 

We will use professional support from Navet Science Center, Boras, Sweden, to help us improve the quality of the concrete outcomes such as devising the content of and producing teaching resources and materials.

 

Teachers will work together regularly by a range of electronic means and in project meetings. They will use observation and action research, in their own and in partner schools. They will also participate in two training weeks, which coincide with two weeks of joint project work for pupils.

 

Pupils will actively participate throughout the project, interact online, and also during the two joint project weeks, where they will take part, and be observed, in activities specifically devised for capturing, recording and assessing skills gained through new learning approaches.

 

The concrete results, including recommendations and examples of innovative approaches and methodologies, will be collected throughout the project and published. These will provide a valuable set of resources of pedagogy and initiatives highlighting effective learning strategies.

 

The project is innovative in four ways:

1. We will investigate new ways in which young children can learn more effectively, and new environments and contexts for learning. We will build on existing knowledge about the role of play in learning and use this to discover how to recognise and assess these learning outcomes. The partners are specifically interested in finding more active, pupil-centred pedagogical approaches which will make the early years and primary curriculum more engaging, creating a positive climate for learning, leading to pupils' enthusiasm for learning as well as improved attainment.

2. We will use identified external experts and relevant centres of expertise throughout the project to add value to the experiences of the participants and the project outcomes.

3. We will focus on the development of a set of specific skills for the 21st century, in order to improve the way we prepare our children for active participation in study, life and work.

4. As we investigate and improve our understanding of the concepts underlying "How Children Learn" our teachers will be better equipped to develop 21st Century skills in our children.

 

Each school will host a project meeting and exchange of practice, during which they will show the partners how they work with children in their areas of strength and expertise. The partners will observe best practice, analyse and discuss what they are shown, and subsequently conduct trials in their own school of new ideas and methodologies. This will provide the basis for concrete project results.

 

Two schools will each host a joint project week for pupils and a simultaneous training week for teachers.

 

Project results will include:

An exposition of the project methodology, describing how the studies and investigations were set up and organised, both during the exchanges of practice and the ongoing work done in the schools;

A complete project record combining the separate records (written, audio and video) of:

- activities undertaken at each exchange of practice,

- activities undertaken at each of the concurrent training weeks for teachers/joint project work weeks for pupils,

- trials of new ideas, approaches and methodologies undertaken in each school following an exchange of practice,

- analyses and findings of each school as a result of these trials,

- recommendations - which new methods work well and produce measurable outcomes.

A set of video records of pupil encounters, and teacher commentaries on these;

A collection of specific teaching and learning approaches and methodologies, materials and resources as the outcome of our research, including how to develop and assess new learning experiences, shown to have been particularly effective in developing the identified skills (also for use in teacher training and universities).

An analysis of how play and informal learning situations can be used to develop skills in each of the three defined categories (basic, transversal and global skills);

A first analysis of how skills acquired through play were recorded and assessed during the project;

Three published sets of case studies, one for each skills group, based on the outcomes and findings of the investigations, providing innovative methods of developing skills in young children;

A set of recommendations for each skills group, covering learning styles, teaching approaches, learning situations and contexts, which have shown to be particularly successful during the project;

Results of questionnaires to the older pupils and all the teachers, at the outset and the conclusion of the project, designed to capture their perceptions of the benefits to be gained from being part of a "European family".

A report of lessons learned and benefits obtained from participation.