"The basis of the project was that many studies had shown the importance of youth participation. The opportunity to make a difference was found to have an empowering influence on youth. In our schools pupils often felt that adults didn’t listen to them and they thought that their opinions weren't important. They felt frustrated, unappreciated and disappointed, even rebellious. We believed that they should be given more opportunities to involve in decision-making. For example a policy review of Council of Europe „Child and youth participation in Finland“ gave recommendations for adults to ensure that young people are listened to. So we decided to use our pupils as experts and invited them more often to the decision process. We decided to take them seriously and this project was used as a tool to make this happen. Through our project we hoped to raise our pupils to become active citizens. To obtain this goal we aimed to teach them the skills needed to staying active and also competences needed to advancing one’s goals using democratic means. We also aimed to teach our pupils that their actions and decisions have meaning and that they should put thought into them. The pupils also learnt that they can have a real impact in their surroundings. This was all achieved through activities such as setting up a campaign against cyber-bullying, setting up an Art Exhibit that showed the dream state of pupils’ surroundings and a debate which taught the pupils to take a stand for the things they believe in. We hope that in the long run the project leads to increased motivation and helps our pupils not to underachieve in the society that surrounds them. The participants of the project were the pupils from four different schools: Kaarilan koulu (Finland), Escola Básica Monsenhor Elísio Araújo (Portugal), Skolen ved Bülowsvej (Denmark) and Liceul Teoretic ""Emil Racovita"" (Romania). The pupils taking part were aged 12-16 years and the project was implemented in a way that enabled as many pupils as possible to take part in many of the activities. The participating pupils for the transnational meetings were chosen based on an application that they write in English. The pupils had to show their motivation and describe why they should be chosen. For each meeting different pupils were chosen so that the project felt more like it’s for the whole school. During the first year the pupils learnt the means needed to staying and being active. The year consisted of activities such as planning and cooking of a healthier lunch-box, organizing a local campaign against cyber-bullying and learning teamwork skills while teaching and playing the national sports of each country. Tangible outcomes of the first year included a Cookbook, campaign material against cyber-bullying and illustrated instructions on national sports. The second year the pupils first focused on their surroundings by taking photos of faults that they could find in their school. They then worked on fixing these faults and also familiarized themselves with the people who could fix the faults that they couldn't themselves. They then used photo manipulation to make the photos look like they felt they should, to look like the faults had been corrected. The photos were made into a large photo-montage showing before and after photos next to each other. The pupils then found a place in their neighbourhood that they felt could be made better in one way or another. They photographed the actual place and then built a scale model to reflect their dream world. Both the scale models and the photo-montages were put up in an Art Exhibition that the pupils organized in a transnational meeting. The second part of the year focused on democracy. The pupils learnt about decision making on local and national level when they prepared videos of democracy in their country. They then compared the democratic systems between different countries to find similarities as well as differences. In the final meeting the pupils also came together for a debate where they had to take a stand for the environmental goals for the year 2030 that they believed in. The pupils taking part in the project benefited by learning to take notice of their surroundings. They acquired the skills needed to take action to correct the faults they notice. They are now better able to take a stand for something that they believe in. This was reached through giving them the skills needed as well as giving them positive experiences in being active citizens. During the campaign against cyber-bullying the local schools will also benefited as they formed the target group of the campaign. The longer term benefits for the participating pupils are clear. They gained language skills, cultural skills and learnt to take an active role in the society where needed. For the participating teachers the project gave a great opportunity to learn from different practices that are used in other countries and to form transnational bonds."

"Our “How Children Learn” Early Years and Primary stage partnership developed from an initial identified need 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 wanted to respond to the immediate challenge of improving and bringing more relevance to the early years and primary learning experience, finding new and better ways of motivating and upskilling our pupils.The objectives are to: 1 improve the way we meet the core needs of pupils – to be solution-focused, independent learners, resilient, better prepared for change in life, study and work, today and in the future;2 enable teachers to be better equipped with improved skills, competences, teaching materials and pedagogical approaches;3 actively encourage the pupils and the teachers to develop a European perspective;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 other organisations are interested in our work, and how further funding can be harnessed.Kirkhill Nursery and Primary School, Aberdeen led this partnership of six schools, using experience of leading 2 previous Comenius partnerships.Manstad Primary Skole, Norway worked with us in our previous Comenius project and had developed a successful intervention and support programme for behavioural problems.Kausalan koulu, a primary and secondary school in Kausala, Finland brought a reputation of high achievement on the PISA scale. Nysäters Förskola, Sweden school bases its teaching on the inspiration approach of Reggio Emilia.Prof. Wassenbergskoalle, a Dutch school where pupils set their own goals, has introduced problem solving through the use of 3D technology.Santa Bàrbara school in Spain established class teaching in three different languages from the age of 3; developed an approach to integration which resulted in more effective learning in classes with a wide social and ethnic mix.Each school made their own contribution to all the project activities and took a leading role in specific parts of the work programme.Our partnership was enhanced by the active participation of Professor Brian Boyd of the University of Strathclyde, who gave regular inputs to direct our research, interpret the outcomes moving our thinking forward throughout the project. He drew on his long research career and as one of the founders of the Scottish “Curriculum for Excellence” he gave us a range of inputs during the project on theories of learning, “Powerful Pedagogies”. He also helped us further develop our quality indicators and use them to monitor outcomes and results.The main activities focused on:• learning from exchanging best practice of our partners through study visits which were followed by critical analysis and discussions;• in our own schools, trying out new approaches, methods and materials which the study visits provided; analysing the outcomes of the trials; giving feedback to all partners on the results; reporting on our findings;• participating in two teaching/learning/training weeks, where focused activities enabled teachers to work with a group of pupils and alongside experts, to study specific aspects of the project and make plans for incorporating new ideas into our teaching and learning. The activities for the pupils were designed to provide a research focus for the teachers.The first training week was held in Spain, where the Spanish school demonstrated their approaches and methodology in teaching languages. Activities for the pupils were designed to capture the learning children experience when engaging in play.The second training week followed the same pattern in a problem solving context and was held in Sweden, devised and led by Navet Science & Technology Centre.During the project we investigated 3 groups of skills - Basic, Transversal, Global, and certain cross focus themes e.g. use of business contexts; how to recognise and assess learning which arises out of play and informal learning.Our main significant output is the ""Charter for Children's learning"". Tangible results also include resources for use in schools; evidence of our strategic planning, professional development and further studies. Our Twinspace displays the project outcomes including concise descriptions of the most significant new contexts and formats for learning, improving skills development and performance of our pupils, including Collaborative Learning, the Storyline approach to teaching, learning through play and boosting creativity.The impacts have been far-reaching and significant. All the partners have acknowledged the understanding and experience we gained by investigating best educational practice in action. We already have evidence of this from the uptake of some of our work by teacher training in Norway, and the use of methods by other schools."

"Three European schools joint together to this two-year-project to study nutrition and its impact on the youth's health. Our joint team consisted of three comphrehensive schools from Gdansk, Poland, Lübeck, Germany and Kotka, Finland. Our pupils were 13-16 years old. The Polish XV Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Zjednoczonej Europy Gdansk, is constantly seeking new teaching methods, solutions and pedagogical approaches.Therefore they are running extended programme classes developing the following subjects: Modern languages (English, German, Spanish), Maths, Physics, IT, Biology, Economics, Social Studies and Art classes. In 2013, they started a Spanish bilingual class. Therefore, they have a wish to specialize in CLIL method.The school has been evaluated by Polish Ministry of Education (Evaluation System of Education). The report proved that the school is a constantly improving organisation, setting high standards of education and achieving very good national exam results. The Ernestinenschule in Lübeck has a solid base for cooperation with schools from various European countries, and is a certified ""Europaschule"". The main interest of this school within the project was on the one hand the concern of some ot their pupils with eating disorders and on the other, to widen up the colabouration with the Lubeckian companies and the program ""FoodRegio"" and to introduce the project schools to them. Furthermore, Lübeck and Kotka are twin towns, therefore the project was a fine possibility to bundle these two towns into an tighter friendship and cooperation. This was the thought in the Finnish school, Karhulan koulu (town of Kotka), too. The school has never participated a project similar to this (Comenius, Erasmus) but we were now very eager to broaden our international relations and knowledge on the habits and practizes in the parter schools with the project. Since the new Finnish Curriculum (2016) underlines the importance of learning activities (experience and doing by yourself), this project was seen as a benefit for the school. The school's strengths for the project were excisting Home Economics lessons and cooking class rooms in the school's premises and free school lunches.Our project was originated by the town twinning of Kotka (Finland) and Lübeck (Germany). From there came the suggestion for a cooperation. All three schools eagerly took the challenge. The two of us visited the Polish school, to brainstorm the main points of interest for the project. The students have presented and worked out the knowledge on food pyramid, additives, ingredients, diseases, disorders with help of and working together with outside institutions such as universities, food factories, food farms (workshops, mini – lectures). Students acted out computer based role plays, filled in and worked on on-line questionnaires. Computer based portfolio, the Finnish Peda.net.fi, was used to record students' achievements and it passed information after students’ exchanges to other students in their own schools. Starting from individual, student-centered approaches to global aspects connected with the food theme we fostered critical thinking to global approach. We also addressed cultural and environmental context by pointing out cultural diversity and its influence on different eating habits - vegan, vegetarian, kosher diets and highlighted the global and ecological aspect of bio-production and the connection between production, cargo and consumption (fair trade, food miles). The project had an inter-disciplinary character, as it involved different subjects like science, economy, religion, art, foreign languages (English, German). The partner schools organized some multilingual activities prior to every students’ exchange to acquire specific terminology, e.g. instructions for cooking, food ingredients, food production and technology. The pupils studied all fields of nutrition and its impact on the health, also to diminish harmful and counterproductive eating habits, which can be very common in the targeted age group (13-15 years). They got informed about the scientific work of the university of Gdansk on this scientific field, they learned first hand knowledge about food production (factories) and cultivation (farms). They also learned to prepare food on their own, a skill that is already included in the Finnish curriculum and was demonstrated to the partner schools' pupils. All this was vast multiplied to the other pupils in the three schools by the participating pupils - and through the internet sites of the schools, local news papers and, in Finland, nationally through the internet connections of the association ""Martat"". We expected to bind some aspects into the schools' curricula, and there has been a middle-term sustainability in the school organisations through this measure."

"The project between Rastaala and Dunkirk Schools started prior to the Erasmus funding in 2016-17 by considering the question - How do we create communities that are physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy? The question was chosen due to each school continuing to admit increasing numbers of children from all over the world, from highly diverse communities, often arriving having fled their home country. The 2 schools considered it imperative to ensure that the schooling of these children was geared towards raising their self-esteem and making them feel safe and valued. Furthermore at times of increasing political unrest communities appeared to be becoming more insular. Dunkirk and Rastaala had a vision for their schools where all children, and their families, and the staff and wider community could understand each other and treat each other with kindness. The project set out to help children understand over a 3 year cycle (beginning in year 0 of the project, prior to Erasmus funding) to consider the ""Journey"" (physical, spiritual and metaphorical) that we have all been on, looking at how we would like to ""Change"" our community in year 2, and what ""Action"" we could take to impact this change, even if in a small way. The project saw 12 teachers in Dunkirk each pair with a teacher in Rastaala, and each term 2 pairs of teachers would visit the partner school. During these mobilities the teachers planned collaborative projects with their partner teacher to be started in their own class, continued in the partner school and finalised in their own class. These projects were based around Acts of Kindness, starting from Acts of Kindness to the self, and widening to acts of kindness towards others and to the environment and world around us. Each term 2 teachers travelled from each school. The travelling teachers were also tasked with keeping the profile of Acts of Kindness on the agenda with the whole school including staff through collaborative international projects, assemblies, displays, and staff meetings and briefings. In addition to the class projects and dissemination of these, the 2 schools collaborated on the International Dance for Kindness in year 0 and year 1 of the project. They also collaborated, along with Lahore Lyceum in Pakistan (not formally included in the project) on what has been an ongoing project between the three schools - The Finglistan News. This is a joint newspaper project that the 3 schools have collaborated on over a number of years prior to the start of this project and during this project. This is one way that the schools ensure that the international partnership is maintained. Additionally, 3 teachers travelled to the Lahore Lyceum to trial some of the acts of kindness activities in Pakistan to ensure that they had true global relevance. During the mobilities staff were asked to also consider any elements of practice which promoted the inclusion of all children, particularly those who had arrived speaking a different language. The final outcomes of the project have differed slightly from the intended outcomes. The final outcomes are a scheme of activities which support the teaching of kindness to all children. Additionally, Dunkirk primary School have re-written their wider curriculum to have termly projects based around taking ""action"" locally or globally based on what has been learnt in history and geography. This change in curriculum is as a direct result of the Erasmus funded project and now sees ""kindness"" and positive impact as central to the curriculum for all 400+ children in the school. This is empowering the children to see themselves as global citizens who can impact the world around them. Dunkirk has also created two roles for the specific teaching of English to those who arrive not being able to speak English, based on what has been observed in Rastaala school. This is positively impacting all new arrivers. Both schools have been working on developing the positive values that we believe are important for global citizens. Dunkirk has formalised this into their PRIDE objectives (problem solving, responsibility, independence, determination, and empathy). The work carried out as part of this project between the paired classes in Rastaala and Dunkirk has fed directly into the development of the whole school value of empathy. Prior to the start of the project (year zero), Dunkirk and Rastaala each produced an acts of kindness video. During the project a third film was produced which mirrors the original two. All 3 videos are now regularly used in all 3 schools for the teaching of kindness and the modelling that the small actions we take can have a big change in the world around us. Additionally, the wider school staff had training on the physiological and psychological importance of kindness to the person being kind as well as the receiver of kindness. The school staff also received well-being training to support their own wellbeing and the children they work with."

The effects of environmental issues constitute a global legacy that future generations must contend with regardless of where they live. International community governments have committed to increasing awareness about environmental issues largely through their national educational systems, focusing on sustainability. Such education, however, tends to be limited to the classroom. Only by involving pupils as valid stakeholders in shared environmental issues, through activities that extend beyond classrooms, can we truly lay the foundations for a sustainable future. Developing partnerships between schools across Europe widens the scope of global awareness and responsibility. Transnational exchange of experiences is essential to develop pupils’ experience beyond their local environment, leading to a broader worldview and increased tolerance of the situation of others. To cultivate a sense of empathy and social justice, pupils need to be aware of the situation of peers elsewhere.The 2-year GEAR project seeks ways to increase the voice and agency of pupils in environmental matters by developing methodologies that, using existing environmental education as a point of departure, involve pupils more actively in their local environment. The purpose is to bring schools together, under the umbrella of environmental responsibility, to devise collective tools to break out of the classroom. (1)Bottom-up Pedagogical Approaches to actively engage pupils(2)Basic Skills and Competences are a means to an end rather than the end itself(3)ICT skills central to activities and dissemination(4)Local Communities of Practice to connect pupils with their environments(5)Nature Discourses: vocabulary and concepts to understand the environment(6)A Transnational Community of Practice: shared experiences and values internationallyThe project unfolds around a 4-element framework (Wind, Water, Earth, Sun). Activities will be geared for pupils at each school, covering a collective age range of 2 - 15 years (pre-primary to secondary). They are designed to promote interdisciplinary co-operation diversely in science, ICT, technology, arts and maths (STEAM) fields, and are approached in different ways by each partner, based on their pedagogical strengths. Pupils should develop a personal connection with the environment, increase their nature discourses, and feel more empowered in environmental matters. Each school will develop a community of practice; a social system concerned with the social nature of learning and involving our common undertaking, leading to identification with the community. The transnational aspect extends this, whereby, pupils and teachers create and become part of a transnational community of practice that shares responsible environmental awareness and values that cross borders.The countries of the 6 project partner schools extend from the north of Europe to the south, representing a range of different climates and contexts (urban/rural):(1)Rajala School, public primary, Finland (Co-ordinating Partner)(2)GBS De Kreke, primary, Belgium(3)Private School Themistoklis, S.A., primary and secondary, Greece(4)Dumlupinar Ortaokulu, public secondary, Turkey(5)Istituto Comprensivo Pablo Neruda, public nursery, primary, and secondary, Italy(6)Goizeko Izarra Ikastola, primary, Basque Country, SpainThe project also has connections with universities (University of Eastern Finland and PANTEION University), thus novel partnerships between schools and scientists can be explored. The 8 joint staff training events are for teacher training and developing collective tools. Teachers can share their experiences and good practice with partners. Participant teachers must disseminate material upon return. The International Classroom pupil mobility allows some pupils from all partner countries to come together in real time, and work together under the project for a week.The GEAR Toolkit will comprise tools in the form of didactical rationales, methods and methodologies from the project activities and qualitative measurement tools to be disseminated electronically. In addition, the results and impact of this project are closely linked to the enrichment of the pupils, teachers, and other adults involved. The greatest expected impact will be on the pupils in terms of enhanced environmental awareness and responsibility, better working skills to tackle activities, closer connection to their local environment, and inclusion in a broader transnational community of practice. These impacts will be measured qualitatively by developing project-specific tools.Climate change is the most serious problem faced by the world today, so the project covers a current topic and an area of education that will only increase in importance and significance. Environmental awareness and responsibility can only develop through active participation and inclusion, so GEAR is only a beginning towards developing environmental education pedagogy.