Critical thinking is a key competency for young people growing up in the 21st century. Children need to make sense of complex and conflicting information. Social media presents a particular challenge with the increasing presence of extremist views. These issues have been recorded by the four partner countries, and this project builds the capacity of teachers today and tomorrow in response to this challenge.SUMMARY OF PROJECT AIM ACHIEVEDThe aim of this project was to support teachers with the training and resources they need to help children to become critical and challenging thinkers. This training directly reached 514 teachers across the UK, Hungary, Poland and Sweden. These teachers will have facilitated ‘difficult conversations’ with 6,245 pupils, and has the potential of reaching a total of 15,420. OUTLINE OF OBJECTIVES ACHIEVEDThe project had 4 key objectives and these have been successfully achieved.1:- To know more about the teaching contexts of partner countries (specifically in dealing with diversity, media literacy and critical thinking).This was achieved by the partners participating in project, training and dissemination. From the evaluation of the project, participants went from 0% saying they had “a good understanding of controversial issues in other European contexts” to 100%, by the end of the project.2. To increase dialogic teaching skills as ways of challenging extremist views.A key activity of the project was the international five day training in dialogic teaching attended by 25 teachers and educators. The main focus of this training was on Community of Enquiry (COE) as a technique for supporting teachers to facilitate ‘difficult conversations’. This was attended by all partners, and involved them sharing their teaching experiences and approaches to developing critical thinkers and challenging extremist views. 3. To understand how dialogic teaching can be delivered in schools.The importance of this training was however for the participants to put the method into practice. The attendees therefore went back to their own countries and delivered cascade training to a total of 514 teachers. This allowed teachers to work with their pupils on holding difficult conversations. These discussions were based on either a current or historic event, and look at it through different media perspective, considering the arguments, evidence and ethics. This then reached 6,245 pupils, with the potential of reaching a total of 15,420. As a result the project collected 42 case studies from across the partner countries. 4. To develop and disseminate online resources to support teachers in the future/ trainee teachers.The classroom projects using dialogue techniques, were collected in the project Intellectual Output – the Teacher Toolkit. This was the subject of the dissemination phase – sharing the learning of teachers in schools, with trainees who will become the teachers of tomorrow. Each partner worked closely with providers of Initial Teacher Training reaching 1143 trainees. This partnership is key to the sustainability of the project, as partners and universities will seek ways of embedding dialogue techniques into teacher training. This wider dissemination was well received with:- 6 national and international events promoting the project- 1980 views/downloads of Toolkit- 7147 visits/likes/views of project website/facebook channels LONGER TERM BENEFITSThe activities resulted in teachers having increased skills to teach critical thinking, and an understanding of how this can be used to challenge extremist views in the classroom. Pupils became more critical, caring, creative and co-operative in their learning, as teachers introduce aspects of the Philosophy for Children approach. Trainee teachers become aware of the need for critical thinking and have access to a relevant Teacher Toolkit resource. Partners have increased their capacity to train others, and developed networks to share their learning. These chain of activities and results will support children to engage with the wider world around them, in positive and thoughtful ways. It will give them the thought processes and language to challenge media, and engage with extremist views. The project will therefore give confidence to teacher, trainee and pupil to “hold difficult conversations”.

This project will support teachers with the training and resources they need to engage children in creating safe spaces for dialogue around gender inequalities and gender discrimination. It will directly reach 400 teachers across the UK, Hungary, Sweden and Italy, and create external coaches to support schools. These teachers will facilitate ‘Gender Agenda’ projects with over 12,000 pupils. The results of this project will be shared with 150 teacher training institutions and 2000 trainee teachers, and more broadly contribute to improved classroom management. The project will be delivered in five phases.Phases 1 and 2 will focus on training in Addressing Gender Equality in Schools ‘AGES’, and using drama to support personal and institutional change. The main focus of this training will be Philosophy for Children and Open spaces for dialogue and enquiry as a technique for supporting teachers to facilitate dialogic enquiry, followed by Forum Theatre to explore behaviour and social change. The progression is so teacher feel confident in at first creating the spaces to identify needs of change in a national context. Then creating an environment using theatre to rehearse scenarios of oppression, discrimination and inequality and equipping teachers and pupils with skills to address these issues in the wider world. These trainings will be attended by all partners, and will also involve them sharing their teaching experiences and approaches to engaging disengaged learners. Phases 3 and 4 involve these partners delivering cascade training to 100 teachers in each of countries. This will then allow teachers to work with their pupils on projects called ‘Gender Agenda'. These projects will take either a local or global issue, and engage learners through dialogue and drama.The ‘Addressing Gender Equality in Schools ‘AGES’ projects will be showcased in a Review and Teacher’s Guide. This will be the subject of the dissemination phase – the project’s fifth and final phase. This phase is crucial as it will share the learning of teachers in schools, with trainees who will become the teachers of tomorrow. Each partner will work closely with providers of Initial Teacher Training to disseminate the Review to over 2000 trainees. This partnership is key to the sustainability of the project, as partners and universities will seek ways of embedding dialogue techniques into teacher training.The activities will result in teachers having increased skills to teach critical thinking, and an understanding of to create safe spaces to address gender inequality and gender discrimination. Pupils will become more critical, caring, creative and co-operative in their learning, as teachers introduce aspects of the Philosophy for Children and OSDE approach. Trainee teachers will become aware of the need for critical thinking and have access to a relevant Teacher Guide resource. Partners will have increased their capacity to train others, and developed networks to share their learning.This chain of activities and results will support children to engage in their learning and with the wider world around them, in positive and thoughtful ways. It will give them the thought processes and language to challenge their situation and take a fuller role as global citizens.

The project evolved from the needs of junctioning the adult and youth education with IT: as the trainees spend a big amount of time in Internet 2.0 environments, there was a lack of educational tools to merge the joy of participating in educational community and to empower multicultural/intergenerational dialogue through a creative procedure able to increase the visibility of those whose social conditions push them aside from social visibility. The project responded by developing an IT tool to support individuals to regain a sense of belonging and to built up their identity telling their stories.Various preparatory meetings were focused to identify the core tool in the Digital Storytelling.Digital Storytelling refers to a short form of digital film-making that allows everyday people to share aspects of their life story; it describes the innovative practice of ordinary people who use digital tools to tell their personal 'story' by turning it into digital narrations in compelling and emotionally engaging formats.The partners identified the creation of a complete set of training materials on digital storytelling as the process by which diverse people share their life story and creative imaginings with others, over the Internet and other electronic distribution systems. With Digital storytelling and the use of an educational platform, we allowed trainees to take an active role in learning, to become knowledge creators, producers, editors, evaluators and knowledge inter- actors.The following project objectives were all successfully achieved:- fostering the use of ICT into educational and social initiatives; promote interaction, communication and collaboration in a knowledge community, fostering the joy of learning, the inquiry and the creativity of the knowledge creation- empowerment of learning responsibility and autonomy of students and participants to training events- increment in social visibility of target groups, such as vulnerable social groups (refugees and ethnic minorities)- transgenarational and transnational transfer of knowledge and skills- contribution in investigating the link between work and one's identityThe project followed the scheduled activities:- create an EOR-Open Educational Resources platform, under the international standard.It serves as an e-public-space for creation of the educational community and the exchange of all educational materials- creation of the first comprehensive methodological guide on digital storytelling methodology- train the partners on digital storytelling during a short term staff training event; participants to LTTA became trainers themselves in local thematic workshops with target groups and contribute to the multiplier events- develop a multidisciplinary tool on digital storytelling on the base of the feed-back from implementation procedure, following an inclusive and participatory approach to foster the trans-generational, transnational aspect and intercultural dialogue- dissemination of the guide and the toolkit during various multiplier events addressed to education facilitators and local stakeholdersThe project results are:- IO1: educational platform on digital storytelling- IO2: comprehensive Methodological Guide on Digital Storytelling- IO3: I dig stories toolkit- more than 40 videosAll the project outputs received a wide impact:- more than 10.000 viewers of the project activities through the platform- 8.179 single viewers of the sole project educational open platform- 1.874 downloads of the sole methodological guide on digital storytelling- the project reached 532.116 web-receivers through 239 dissemination actions in 24 months of project lifeThe platform will be open long after the project end, assuring a longterm benefit by becoming the first complete repository of digital storytelling method and experiences.The project was implemented by:- Diciannove applicant, responsible for implementing the e-platform (IO1), project management and dissemination; experience in application of IT to social/educational programs, in media knowledge and literacy, developing e-learning environments, research/video techniques- Anthropolis Association main activity is in the adult education field by introducing the digital storytelling as a new learning and self-understanding method. Responsible for implementing the methodological guide (IO2)- Liverpool World Centre (LWC) works with children and teachers with a strong experience in intergeneration educational field. Responsible for implementing the toolkit (IO3)- Zoe has experiences in educational activities; specific competences and ceritifications in managing workshops to include the local community- Vardakeios is expert in training with migrants and locals with strong experience in multicultural learning- Danmar has IT teaching and Eu organisation skills; provides vocational training in IT and e-learning services. Responsible for project evaluation

The idea behind the project was to exchange, collect and share ideas, methods, practical activities, best practices to help to create an inclusive school and preventing early school leaving. School of Tomorrow wanted to equip the learners, students with skills and competences such as creative thinking, inquiry based learning and independent learning.Within the SOT project teachers and facilitators in the field of education have come together to share best practices from their teaching experiences and presented for each others. The project was based on 4 international training meetings where all partners presented at least one or more methods/activities fit into the project criteria. After the trainings, partners as multipliers shared the learnt methods/activities to their colleagues, fellow-teachers, and educators. All methods were evaluated by partners and the trained colleagues and if it was possible by the students. The variety of the methods/activates could adapt easily into the formal and non-formal education field.During the project period partners discussed the effectivity of the shared and tested methods/activities and using these experiences they collected the best practices into a toolbox. With the publication of the online toolbox which is available on the project’s website (https://anthropolis.hu/projektek/sot), on the EPALE and the School Education Gateway the consortium disseminated the methods/activities for larger public. The partnership was composed by active educators (teachers, trainers, NGO and university staff members) who could piloting and also disseminating the activities or the toolbox in their daily practice. All partners delegated competent participants to all the trainings, who can deliver workshops, school activities and can have a further role as multiplier. The project and the partnership was well established and working well, but the Covid pandemic situation effected both the school activities and the last training meeting. The postponed last meeting in Greece was adapted the new situation and the Greek partner presented more online activities. Partner from 2 organisation (from UK and Sweden) couldn’t attend the last meeting live, they followed the trainings online (via zoom conference).

This project draws together educators seeking to engage school children to think critically about climate change, collaborate sustainably and act justly. It will directly reach 500 educators across France, Hungary, Italy and the UK, and create a high profile educational platform to reach many more. These educators will facilitate Model UN Climate Conferences with over 12,000 pupils. The results of this project will be shared with schools and local authorities and 1200 trainee teachers, and more broadly contribute to understanding of climate education. The project will be delivered in five phases.Phases 1-3 will focus on developing the knowledge and skills of teachers and educators to deliver more engaging climate education. There will be a specific focus on Climate Conferences as an educational framework and Community of Enquiry as method for critical thinking. This will be captured in the first project publication “Climate Action Guide for Teachers, Pupils and Policy Makers: Thinking critically, collaborating sustainable and acting justly”. Phase 4 will see the project theory be brought alive for children with Model UN Climate Conferences accompanying COP26 events in UK and Italy. Schools will be invited to share their local climate problems with international Climate Partners. Through the Climate Conferences schools will commit to carbon emission targets using the projects Carbon Calculator, and their partners will check their progress. This process will be a mixture of critical thinking, collaboration, and alternative decision making that enables pupil voice to be prioritised, and policy makers to become accountable. Crucially, training in this phase will focus on how to facilitate behaviour change for critical action on an individual, whole school and policy level.The International Climate Action Network project will be showcased in a Climate Action Guide, a Climate Conference Toolkit and Educational E Platform. This will be the subject of the dissemination phase – the project’s fifth and final phase. This phase is crucial as it will share the learning of educators, with trainees who will become the educators of tomorrow. Each partner will work closely with providers of formal education institutions to disseminate the Guide and Toolkit. This partnership is key to the sustainability of the project, as partners and universities will seek ways of embedding climate education into educator training.The activities will result in educators having increased skills to create safe spaces for children to actively engage with climate change issues locally, and support Climate Partners internationally. Trainee educators will become aware of the need for critical thinking and have access to a relevant Teacher Toolkit resource. Partners will have increased their capacity to train others, and developed networks to share their learning. Crucially, the creation of the Educational E Platform will reach teachers beyond the project beneficiaries.This chain of activities and results will impact on policy makers and promote thinking about how to make climate education engaging and meaningful. It will also increase the practice of good digital learning. In doing so it will better prepare marginalised children to take fuller role as 21st century global citizens.