"Our project's name was ""Phoenix"". It symolized a firebird rising from the ashes of educational despair with high aspirations and expectations. We chose that name because it should be a symbol of a huge amount of students taking part in the project whose past was influenced by failures and demotivation at school. With the help of this project we opened new opportunities for disadvantaged, inefficient and especially efficient students. This way they were given the chance to work together in international teams in order to increase their motivation to learn. Thereby we used new media, created new learning strategies and showed them new perspectives for live after school, sharpened their awareness how to take their future in their own hands.We met our objective to increase their self-, social- and media competences/skills. Social skills with cooperating and learning from each other in international teams. Media skills by discovering and trying the 21st century skills. Self competence by increasing the students' self confidence because they had to present their presentations in front of all participants and actively take part in several workshops. In addition they trusted in and improved their English knowledge which was means of communication.All participants widened their knowledge of other cultures, traditions and ways of life and benefited from it. We also felt positively impressed by getting to know other schools systems and exchanging of innovative teaching and learning methods. New media trends were tested, knowledge about them broadened, such as city guides.Six European schools took part in the ""Phoenix"" project. The amount in percentage of students with drop out behaviour was pretty high in the participating schools. The Greek evening school teaches students who try to pass their exams in a second-chance education. During the mobilities we dealt in seminars and workshops with the fllowing aspects: problems and risks for drop out, possibilities of motivating students, how to increase motivation, exchange of innovative teachiing and learning methods, opportunities of technological lessons (digital whiteboard, new media), professional orientation at participating schools, cooperation with parents and local authorities, use of several current online tools for digital presentations/results (website, padlet, ebook, powtoon, learning apps, quizlet and others), effectively sustainable local enterprises.Apart from the mobilities many other students took part in the logo contest, created city guides and their subtitles in English and their mother tongue, produced a rap, learned and used techniques of graffit, created role-plays on the topic integration and presented them in front of an international audience, produced a common picture story on cultural diversity, used eTwinning, made an exhibition about the participating schools and the logo contest, showcases and flyers about the progress of the project, released articles in newspapers and on school homepages, live streaming, tv presentations, completed our youTube channel, websites and evaluations.All participating students, teachers, parents and stakeholders could be fascinated by the Erasmus+ idea in the course of the project. Dissimination was strengthened by publications in local press and on tv. The long-term benefit of the project was and is mainly measured in the increasing willingness of colleagues to run international projects (eTwinning), the more attractive way of teaching lessons by less fear of contact with new media and the sustainable effect of authentic meetings in other countries and partly in other families."

"Helping our students to manage their emotions better was our highest aim and our biggest achievement: due to the project activities involving animal-human interaction, interpersonal communication, organisational skills development, decision-making instances and open education learning practices, improvement was recorded in important sectors such as self-regulation and self-management, negotiation and communication skills, as well as characteristics of self-control. All these positive outcomes, which were measured by collecting the results of the final survey and comparing the numbers to the ones gathered from the initial survey or as shown in the feedback sheets, were accompanied by a positive change in the general learning behaviour of the students as well as their social relations, followed also by a rise in their academic achievement level, especially in the fields of English, sciences and technology. By engaging our students in tasks which were based on environmental issues, or were ICT-related, and by encouraging them to become more efficient communicators, especially in the English language, our project managed to empower the students involved, from different countries and schools, and to become the voice of the animals on matters such as animal rights, to master social dialogue techniques and share their thoughts on themes in which they showed a common interest.PRET-A-PET activities were an opportunity for them to expand their cultural horizons, to be more open-minded and culturally sensitive, to research and talk about their favourite animals, to share videos and to use their communication abilities in a foreign language, orally or online/ in an electronic medium. From the animals they learned how important it is to be humane and they understood why they should be more positive, tolerant and to break away from prejudice or passivity, and for the sake of the animals they succeeded to discover in themselves the strength to carry on, inspite of challenges and difficulties. Therefore, it was not a project which was only student-oriented, but involved the whole community, including teachers, parents, students’ friends and the local community: throughout key PRET-A-PET activities they were all encouraged to be more empathetic, to make a difference and to look for solutions to a wide variety of problems via problem-solving collaborative gatherings. PRET-A-PET addressed topics which focused on developing transversal competencies in learners (competencies that they would make use of throughout all their lives: biology-related abilities, cognitive skills, high-order thinking, social regulation, interpersonal competencies, learning autonomy) so that they were able to become more motivated as learners, but also as world citizens: throughout the project, more and more students felt empowered to reach their full potential and were encouraged to become autonomous learners. The novelty of our project lies in the fact that we implemented open education and non-formal techniques (such as Theatre Forum, social dialogue, etc.) which were elements embraced by students with much excitement or at least curiosity and inquisitiveness, breaking away from common educational practices. Moreover, task performace was assessed according to novel parametres, belonging to the social and the cognitive dimensions, a bidimensional scale that helped teachers locate the ZPDs of the most active students. In this way, students were encouraged to build up the skills that they hadn't been initially aware of and to gain experience in practices that they would need on their way to acceeding jobs from the markets of the future economies; those workplaces would require them to be flexible and learn continuously in order to respond to periodically renewing requirements. Basically, we taught students to get ready to acquire skills which might not seem dominant in the immediate time and to anticipate what could be used in their future jobs; most importantly, they got used to staying open to cutting-edge practices and not feel discouraged when dealing with new things. As for the activities and products envisaged by the project, one of the most impressive one was the ""Emotional First Aid Kit"" which consisted of a box full of surprise and delight for children and youngsters, a synaesthetic box that set them on a journey (""inside out"") to explore their emotions while reading Kitty’s story and to understand their reactions better; each kit contained a story illustrated with pictures and a surprise set of realia that connected them right to the story through all their senses."

"“Literature - a Framework for Social and Emotional Learning” is an Erasmus+ strategic partnership, exchange of good practices between schools from Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and coordinated by a Romanian school.Each year, the partner schools realize different analyses about the school progress of the pupils, their state of well-being and academic results, about their problems of integration in the school environment due to the socio-economic problems, family problems or of other types of problems.All the partner schools from Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Romania identified similar problems among their pupils in the last two years:- insufficient school programmes dealing with the acquisition of the 21st century skills;- lack of new motivating teaching-learning strategies and methods centred on pupils’ needs;- too much theory provided, not skills or practice.- pupils’ social, civic and intercultural skills, the well-being, are at a low level. 30% of the pupils (the target group) in all partner schools come to high school from different social backgrounds: rural areas, different economically disadvantaged areas, single parent families, immigrants, different ethnic groups. They do not know how to react in the new educational environment and they do not feel integrated, they become bored, hot-tempered stubborn, even aggressive, low emotional well-being. Some of them present symptoms of stress or isolation. All these lead to poor academic results and early leaving school.Being a European issue, a European approach is needed, so we chose to develop an Erasmus+ project on this issue.The general objective of the project is to create a preventive intervention strategy based on the acquisition of the 21st-century skills through literature in a non-formal, interdisciplinary and European context.Specific objectives:O1. The creation of a preventive strategy based on social and emotional learning with impact on the social, civic, intercultural, the soft skills of the pupils from the 5 partner schools by the end of August 2020, and its implementation during the project and in the 3-year sustainability period.O2. The improvement of pupils’ well-being, social and emotional, civic and intercultural skills, motivation and active participation, for at least 40% of 810 pupils (the target group) in the partner schools by the end of 2020.O3. Teacher training in social, civic and emotional learning for 8 teachers from the 5 partner schools in 5 short-term joint staff training events by the end of the project.The pupils involved in the project count 810. That is 30% from the total number of pupils from the partner schools, aged 12-18.They are from heterogeneous groups, learning in schools with different profiles and specializations: theoretical high school specializations and profiles, VET specialization and profiles. This situation gives us the opportunity to combine different expertise of teachers from different domains and specializations.This project proposes to be:1. active-participative. It will provide needs-based interactive forms of learning to help our pupils acquire new skills;2. focused on personal development for teachers and pupils (self-awareness) and social, civic and intercultural skills and competences, social awareness;3. explicit. The target is represented by specific social-emotional skills.The prevention strategy is correlated with the planned activities of the project which address to universal interventions and selective interventions, subgroups with risk factors, poor academic achievement etc.The dissemination of the strategy of prevention and acquisition of social and emotional skills in the partner schools and communities will have as a result a targeted example of good practice at the European level with positive effects on pupils’ well-beingThe use of literature as an instrument provides pupils with insights into their own life situations; the literary texts will initiate and stimulate debates and conflict resolutions; they will reduce anxiety and risky behaviours.Concrete results and final products of the project: “The Living Story of Cultural Identity”. Each partner country writes a chapter of the book, “Bibliotherapy. Didactic Resources for Mind and Soul”, a collection of texts from the literature of the partner countries with lesson plans, videos, non-formal methods and examples of good practice for the acquisition of social, civic, intercultural and emotional skills and competences through literature and as a prevention strategy for risky behaviours, inadaptability and social exclusion, “e-Dictionary of Positive Language"". The short-term joint staff training events and the teachers collaboration contribute to the creation of strategy of prevention and acquisition of new social, civic and intercultural skills and competences, its application in the projects partner schools and its sustainability on long term through activities and Erasmus+ projects."

"Seven schools belonging to Portugal, Greece, Romania, Italy, Poland, Latvia and Spain with different dimensions, contexts and backgrounds but with a common interest in improving their working methods and exchange methodologies and good practices were involved in the strategic partnership ""Healthy Living and Equal Opportunities Through Sport"".According to horizontal and field specific priorities in school education the main objectives of the exchange were to adapt learning programmes in the participating schools considering: sport practice, outdoor physical activities, healthy lifestyle education, inclusion and integration as instruments to face this items in order to increase students' awareness about risky behaviour, providing conditions to increase civic conscience, cultural development and self-fulfillment. Complementarily, other goals were to fight against addictions, guarantee equal rights and opportunities to students with disabilities and foster the integration of people of different race and backgrounds. Globally we aimed to enhance the qualities that should prevail in an European citizen.The project was lead and developed through the action of two main working teams composed of teachers and students, having the leading role in the project, organizing the activities in each school. Three main topics were developed along the three years project lifetime: ""Youth Health and nutrition and sport practice against disease and obesity; Addictions and risky behaviour in sport and youth's daily life"" the first, ""Inclusion and disability"" the second and ""Sport against racism and xenophobia as a mean to foster social integration"" in the third year. For each topic we developed a variety of activities (competitions, experiments, videos, workshops, meetings, presentations, surveys, researches, visits, glossary, exhibitions), two final products, a public event and a final conference. We also made a final publication and the guidelines of good practices for internal and external dissemination.Learning activities abroad involved around 80 students, giving them the opportunity to deepen the topic with special activities using informal and non-formal methods, reinforce their intercultural learning, develop new competences and transfer them to their schoolmates.Apart from other dissemination platforms, an eTwinning project was defined concurrently to show off the project to the public and share experiences among schools during the project and after the end of the project, becoming a space to exchange information among schools, keep in touch and plan other activities after the project completion, thus guaranteeing to achieve a multiplier effect and a sustainable impact on their own organization.DEOR for this project was defined carefully to give a high level of involvement inside and outside the organizations involving all the schools' communities, families of all students and local and national organisations.The main results of the project, which constitute also long terms benefits are: a better involvement of students in the school activities implementing strategic use of ICT and another innovative learning methods; a deep impact on the participant schools as they implemented working methods and defined innovative practices through a common approach, exchanging experiences of good practice; the implementation of methods of social inclusion of students with disability and enable quality learning for all to prevent drop out and take care of students with cultural and social disadvantages; the promotion of intercultural dialogue, tolerance and acceptance; the reduction of disparities in learning outcomes affecting learners with disadvantaged backgrounds; to provide conditions to increase civic conscience, cultural development and self-fulfillment; the awakening of the world curiosity that leads to increase of motivation to learn; to increase effective communication between European schools and its communities.Since the students of the working teams will be involved after leaving school as former expert students they will establish a working group and support new students and the school to give sustainability to the project in the following years. In such a way, they can cooperate with their past and new school in order to apply for other EU projects or identify new target groups among their acquaintances to involve in other actions of Erasmus +, such as youth exchanges.In the future schools will be able to strengthen the links (by sharing common experiences and also by defining other projects such as exchanges of students and teachers for language improvement) and improve teaching methods in years to follow defining new guidelines of good practice.This cooperation among participant schools is the strong point for the sustainability of the project and was the base of the application process for another strategic partnership that can reinforce the multiplying effects of the present project."

"NEW DIMENSIONS OF EDUCATIONContext and background for the project Teaching techniques and activities have much importance today. Because today is different from yesterday and as teachers, we need to improve ourselves by different ideas and creating motivational atmosphere for our learners.So,the basic aim of our project is to increase the participation of our students in the course and to develop creativity and horizons of our teachers except their routines through this project.The reasons for this project Firstly, learning is not only influenced by cognitive processes but also it is affected by affective processes(It is desired to benefit from the project in terms of motivation.).That is,our students need to be more motivated for lessons to be successful and this shows us how important the concept “motivation” .Secondly, We have got low success rate because our school is in an undeveloped area of ​​the city .By the help of this project,we will try to increase our success with motivating and different acitivities at our lessons.Thirdly,our students have got a narrow vision because of their limited opportunities with their living areas and through the project they will enlargen their visions. Next; in terms of teachers,reviewing and strengthening their professional profile of the teaching profession is intended with this project.Also,the development of innovative applications and implementation of them are tried to practice at European level.Lastly,the most important reason for this project is to develop good study habits for students and to create different learning environment(more including)for teachers. Number and profile of participating organisations Our partnership consists of 6 partners from different countries including primary and secondary schools respectively. Siauliai University Gymnasium has 436 students, 51 teachers and 20 staff workers.It is very modern, open to positive changes and using modern technology in teaching process.Mehmet Akif Ersoy Ortaokulu is a small school with 856 students and 47 teachers in Kilis in Turkey.Esperino Gymnasio-Lykeias Taxeis Trikalon is a public secondary education school for working students - over 14 years of age – and also for adults –working and not working- who wish to get the certificate of High school and Lyceum.This institution is good at STEM applications.SOU Gimnazija ""Goce Delcev"" is a secondary school high school ""Goce Delchev"" is located in Kumanovo, Republic of Macedonia. The school offers the following educational profiles: natural sciences, social sciences and linguistic areas.Scoala Gimnaziala Sfantul Apostol Andrei is a primary school in Buzau, a town in the South –East of Romania. It has joined a lot of Comenius projects on ITC and collaborative project based teaching before.Agrupamento de Escolas Eduardo Gageiro offers secondary school education from 14 to 19 years old. It's an big school, as there are 1600 students. It's located in Sacavem,İn Lisbon-Portugal.Description of activitiesFive different exchanges were held in each country, each dealing with a different dimension of the matter, i.e: 1st: (Turkey) Sports,English and music in Turkey (short-term exchanges of groups of pupils). 2nd: (Portugal)Robotics and computer programming for science teachers (short-term joint staff training events). 3rd: (Romania) ITC and Mathematics teaching (short-term exchanges of groups of pupils). 4th: (Macedonia)STEM implemantations,natural sciences,social studies and linguistic areas (short-term joint staff training events). 5th: (Lithuania) The final meeting for final report and evaluation in Lithuania (short-term exchanges of groups of pupils). Results and impact attained The project can be a good study of collaboration for innovation and exchange of good practises. We want to develop new and innovative approaches and disseminate the best practises. We would like to increase the success of young people.We want to support teachers to have high quality teaching, deal with complex classroom realities and adopt new methods and tools.Our project that fosters multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches integrates the teaching of basic skills (maths, science and literacy). So, the participants will also cooperate in exchanging and developing teaching methods and materials according to contemporary knowledge such as ITC based lessons,STEM implementations that they will have during our project.This will be done on our website which will provide information about teaching strategies for teachers and other interested people. Thus,we will show educational practice in the adaptation and integration of new teaching strategies of six partner countries. In sum, the project will affect both teachers and students positively: as today’s teachers, we will update ourselves with new teaching techniques and more motivating activities;as a result of this, our students will be more eager to take part in our lessons."