The main focus of the project are teachers - people who face daily professional challenges in working with problematic behaviours. Problem behaviours often start in kindergarten age and if it is not timely pedagogically treated, the amount of problems only increase leading to more heavy problem behaviors that can have severe impact on child's future like skipping school, quitting school, not being able to fit in a collective, weak focusing skills and learning skills, usage of drugs and other problem behaviours. To be able to treat these problem behaviours accordingly to nowadays evidenced based practice and work experience of different countries, teachers need ongoing educating. The aim of the project is to increase teachers competences in work with children whose behaviors are challenging.

BACKGROUND: Teachers and other school staff are facing challenges in working with autistic children on everyday basis. Sometimes educators experience difficulties in finding the best methodologies and techniques working with autistic children and integrating them in mainstream classrooms. This project was aimed for teachers and other school staff to acquire new knowledge and skills in order to be able to work with autistic and mainstream children in a way that is advantageous for both of these groups. It wasn’t only help for teachers and other school based specialists to improve learning environment but it also shoved how to include autistic children in mainstream collective more effectively. AIM: The aim of this project was to ensure teachers and school staff (assistants, speech therapists, social educator, special educator and others that are in any way involved in working with autistic children) with information, techniques, methods and practical skills in order to be able to include autistic children in mainstream classes the best way possible for them. Also to be able to gain from school environment not only curriculum but also cooperation skills, problem solving skills and to increase their communicative abilities. This project wasn’t only a great support for school staff but also a contribution in autistic children education. As different countries use wide variety of methods and techniques in work with autistic children in mainstream classes it was crucial to look at this matter in a broader way than just one country - Latvia. The aim was to include at least five countries and exchange teachers and staff experiences in between these countries. At the end of the project we had a conference in Latvia, where many teachers from mainstream schools who face challenges of including autistic children in mainstream classes were provided with new resources to improve their teaching quality and overall knowledge of autism from an international experience based perspective. PARTICIPANTS: It was planned to include at least five partners in this project from different countries Iceland, United Kingdom, Estonia, Slovakia and Latvia. Selection process of partners was based on their experience in the field of including autistic children in mainstream classes. Only preschools and primary schools which had previous experience and which were including autistic children in mainstream classes at the moment of applying to the project were selected. Previous cooperation partners were also addressed to ask them if they would like to take part in this project. ACTIVITIES: All partners were asked to share their knowledge and practical skills in working with autistic children in mainstream classes through organizing short term joint staff training activities/master classes in their countries as well as participating in short term joint staff training events and master classes organized by partner organizations. Regularly project meetings were held to plan coming up training activities, develop work sheets, questionnaires and other relevant documents for the project. RESULTS AND IMPACT: The main outcome of this project was increased knowledge of school staff, especially of teachers who work with autistic children. The knowledge includes different working techniques, methods and skills in order to improve autistic children inclusion process in mainstream schools. Results are available for society on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, where all information from seminars, master classes and every day project work is published. And the main outcome was a resource pack for educators in working with autistic children.

Project Title: Exploring Different Methods of Science Teaching to Increase Student Motivation and Promote Scientific LiteracyThrough this project we hope to motivate students by presenting science as being relevant to their everyday life experiences. This project will help to encourage students to view science as being useful to all citizens and thus enhance scientific literacy.Using these innovative teaching strategies will help to increase the number of students who take up science subjects at tertiary level.This project aims to develop, test and implement innovative approaches and practices in teaching science.Through research and observation of different syllabi from the different participating countries, one can gain experience in designing better curricula for our country. This could also be done through networking with educational specialists from universities in Malta and other European countries. Motivating students by presenting science as being relevant to their everyday life experiences is one of the main objectives of this projects.We aim to encourage students to view science as being useful to all citizens and thus enhance scientific literacy through innovative methodology.Through the new methodologies in science teaching we aim to increase the number of students who take up science subjects at tertiary level The number of participants is approximately 40, most of which most are teachers, head of schools and a University lecturer specializing in Science EducationOur intention is to research and study different European curricula in order to find common teaching areas. Once the topics are established, specific lesson plans will be set up through collaboration and networking with different schools in European countries. The innovative methodologies to be used in these lessons will be discussed between the participating countries and through networking with educational specialists from universities in Malta and the other European countries involved in this project.Each participating school will devise a lesson plan which later will be conducted in each participating school, this willl be video taped, and afterwards analysed by the teachers and educational specialists involved in this project. Feedback is given and the lesson plan is amended according to the feedback given. Then this lesson is repeated with a different class and it will then be analysed once again. These lessons will be uploaded in a website and any resources used will be available online for dissemination with other teachers.The long term impact and benefits envisaged after finishing this project is that through innovative teaching methodologies tackled in this project, teachers will start to use these methodologies and students will show increase in motivation, uptake of science options at a higher level and an increase in scientific literacy.

"The PACTEs project concerned a territory where social contrasts are very strong: the city of Deauville and the Normandy coastline welcome tourists from all over the world, the historical heritage is very rich and linked to European history. At the same time, a large part of the local youth, coming from underprivileged backgrounds, are excluded from this dynamism: their families work in seasonal and/or unskilled jobs linked to tourist activities, young people are not very mobile in their own territory, they are not familiar with the heritage of their region and do not take advantage of the opportunities for intercultural encounters that are present on the coastline. Their openness to the world is limited and their academic ambitions are not very developed: the choice of studies is made according to the geographic location closest to the home and early school dropout is frequent to avoid a possible mobility linked to the choice of a training. the actors of the territory, schools, local authorities, associations, have decided to work together so that young people, from elementary school to the baccalaureate, can : - discover and appropriate a local heritage that they do not know - be able to promote this territory and this heritage abroad in a European citizenship approach - learn to work in interaction with European partners in order to live an intercultural experience - experience mobility abroad while being prepared to develop the autonomy and self-esteem necessary for a successful personal and professional life. It was planned that 980 young people from 8 European territories, all located either on a coastline or in a river area, would work together for 3 years thanks to digital communication tools on a theme common to all the partners. The project was about ""European territories along the water"" with, according to the choices of each one, a work on the problems of the protection of the environment and the littorals, the economic, tourist and leisure activities related to the sea or to the rivers, the historical and cultural heritage of these territories in connection with water. The interactions between the schools, colleges and high schools of all the partners, the collaborative work via e-twinning should lead to productions and common events in inter-degree and international and mobilities that will bring lasting links between young people and founding experiences for them. The expected results of this ambitious project have been strongly impacted by the health situation which has stopped the whole project from February 2020 to June 2021.While year 1 of the project allowed for digital exchanges between schools and production work by each shared with all the project partners, as described in the interim report of the project validated in 2020, the exchange activities between schools were mostly stopped until the end of the project: the simultaneous closure of European institutions during the first containment period in the spring of 2020 and until the start of the 2021 school year for some partners, and then the closures that were still ongoing in some countries while the institutions were reopening in France did not allow for the installation of perennial digital relationships. The schools, which educate students from disadvantaged backgrounds, have not succeeded in mobilizing their students remotely due to the lack of computer equipment in the families. The digital divide in rural areas took on its full meaning: Teachers were unable to conduct remote work with their students, they first ensured the continuum of basic teachings for their students using paper mailings. The project activities were abandoned due to the imperatives. Two French schools succeeded in mobilizing the pupils on productions which were made available to all the partners on the twinspace of the project which was not invested by the participants in the project, for lack of easy access to Internet during the successive confinements. The mobilities planned in the project were to take place mainly between spring 2020 and spring 2021. They did not take place because of the travel restrictions in force in all the partner countries. The expected results can therefore only be measured in the first year of the project through the interim report that has been validated."