"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."

Maths is used in almost all walks of life and almost all career sectors - it is vital that children leave school with a secure grasp of mathematical concepts and how to apply these to a wide range of contexts. Research shows that a secure understanding of maths at primary level is vital to make good progress through a secondary maths curriculum. Additionally, there is ample research showing the overall predictive value of later academic success based on early mathematical skills. The schools have worked hard to develop staff subject knowledge and pedagogy to equip students with the mathematical knowledge and skills needed for the next phase of their education and beyond into later life, keeping pace with changing national expectations in their respective countries. There is considerable expertise in the schools already. One of the Rastaala teachers has written a maths textbook for younger pupils covering the Finnish curriculum; and 2 of the Dunkirk teachers have been working closely with the local Maths Hub to better understand how to improve their own and others’ pedagogy. Whilst overall teaching of maths in both schools has improved, both schools identify a key area of difficulty – how best to support pupils who have gaps, or who are vulnerable to gaps, in their mathematical understanding. These pupils fall into two groups – pupils who have lower attainment in maths overall and are struggling to acquire new concepts; and those pupils who arrive to the schools as migrants from countries where the mathematical teaching may be different. These pupils may have specific gaps that cause difficulties in acquiring new mathematical concepts at the pace they are taught within the classroom. A number of other factors impact, e.g. specific diagnosed/undiagnosed learning difficulties; being new to learning the language; reasons for migration. In order to be fully inclusive, the schools want to understand how best to support these groups of pupils to close the gaps and impact positively on their progress in maths. The project aims to understand how best to identify gaps in learning, how to fill those gaps, how to close the gap in attainment for children working below same-age peers, and to teach in a way to prevent gaps from occurring in the future. The project aims to identify key methodologies that have the greatest impact as well as identifying ways to support parents with understanding how to help their children at home. Participants will have a responsibility to teach maths or support home learning, and will have the capacity to drive improvements in the quality of teaching maths across the whole school. Participants will travel in pairs to the partner school. During the visit, they will visit maths lessons with pupils of different ages; observe a leading practitioner teach maths; engage in post-lesson professional dialogue. Each travelling teacher will pair with a host teacher to jointly plan and teach a pair of maths lessons. The travelling teacher will teach lesson showcasing their best-practice. At the end of the lesson, the pupils’ progress within the lesson will be reviewed and discussed. The following day the host teacher will teach a follow on lesson designed to address any misconceptions identified and to exemplify their best-practice. The visiting teacher will co-teach and support pupils in this lesson. Staff training events in maths will be planned to coincide with mobilities so that teachers from both schools can benefit. Notes, photos and videos from these will be made available to all staff from the project schools. On return, participants will meet with the project team and plan a whole-school professional development event to share the good practice they have observed, and set expectations for which aspects will be trialled in their school. As the project develops and more participants travel, the number of methodologies observed will increase. It is expected that all participants will try all of the methodologies shared, and that all other relevant school staff will be aware of these and try them as is appropriate for their class/es and career stage. Throughout the project, the impact of the new methodologies will be monitored for positive impact on individuals and groups, paying close attention to the groups highlighted above who already have gaps/are vulnerable to gaps developing. All direct and indirect participants will have increased understanding of a range of methodologies to support the teaching of maths and the support of pupils who have prior gaps in learning/who are vulnerable to gaps developing. By the end of the project, each school will amend their maths teaching policy to include the methodologies that have had most impact, such that going forwards all teachers will be expected to use these, and all pupils will benefit. Materials will be produced and events will be held to help parents understand how best to support their child in maths.

Context/background of the project;In an increasingly complex world, where societal and global tensions are growing, we seek to nurture future citizens who have a sense of Global Citizenship and pride in promoting and shaping a future plural society. In this context both partner schools in the UK and Finland seek to resolve the question of:‘How do we develop Pupil Voice in our schools enabling young people to become active and responsible citizens?’Objectives; We set out to (i) Plan and design a suitable platform on which we could (ii) Share our experiences and (iii) discover and learn from best practice whilst (iii) developing novel teaching approaches to answer this key question. In order for pupils to be effective and successful European and global citizens they need to be able to communicate with confidence. Multi-literacy was identified as an area of concern in both schools. It had been identified in each school that pupils cannot achieve the best in basic reading and writing unless they are confident speakers and communicators.Number and profile of participating organisations; Dunkirk Primary School is in an urban city setting with 42 staff to 420 pupils from diverse social backgrounds, predominantly local children with a high proportion of non-english mother tongues (36 nations and 42 langauages spoken) and those from transitional migrant families, with social mobility from poor through to privileged.Rastaala School Espoo-Finland by contrast is in rural/suburban setting with 50 staff to 580 pupils from predominantly upwardly socially mobile professional families, coping with a recent influx of non-Finnish pupils from settling and transitory migrant families.Description of undertaken main activities; (a) The country coordinators planned the curriculum with a view to supporting the project but also to scale up across whole school Curriculum wide integration; (b) Coordination of staff and pupils in readiness for the exchange visits to maximise opportunities for target pupils and staff that had most to gain; (c) Conducting the exchanges as planned and leveraging of emerging opportunities for increased learning; (d) Reflection and dissemination Results and impact attained;Both schools successfully identified the need to develop Pupil Voice within their learning communities. The project focused on improving the attainment of all pupils who are not reaching expected levels in multi-literacy . The ability to speak, listen and communicate through different media was achieved as an essential skill for all targeted pupils and also had a profound effect on their families and the community at large across both UK and Finn school communities. This project successfully enabled and encouraged all pupils and teachers to investigate different ways of communicating their ideas, thoughts and opinions using both verbal and non-verbal techniques and strategies. Pupils are now able to communicate, discuss and debate beyond the comfort zone of their own classroom. They have become flexible communicators, with the ability to adapt and empathize across both local and European/Global contexts. Working as partner schools in Europe provided us the ideal opportunities to develop global dialogues where a deeper understanding of each other’s cultures, perspectives and opinions successfully took place. Data analysis of targeted pupils shows significant improvement in their actual literacy scores. Of the pupils monitored:Reading - 80% of pupils made more than the expected progress Reading - the pupils involved made, on average, 3.4 points of progress. The expected progress was 2.0 pointsReading - average progress from KS1 to end of KS2 of last year's Y6 pupils involved in the project was 1.2. National average was 0 so puts us well above averageWriting - 60% of pupils made more than the expected progressWriting - the pupils involved made, on average, 3.2 points of progress. The expected progress was 2.0 points This data has confirmed that the involvement in such projects is crucial to help pupils attain the very best they can in all areas of development .Longer Term BenefitsThe project, 'Pupil Voice' looked collectively at the Big Question 'What Kind of a World would we like to live in? Due to the global themes covered the project gave all participants an enhanced sense of their ability to affect change on an individual and collective level. The two themes covered were Greed and Power(Year 1) and Equality and Racism(Year 2). Their engagement with issues such as the treatment of Refugees has developed an acute awareness of injustice around the world and how things must change.In total 42 pupils 20 staff were able to participate in European travel, some had never stepped out of their own country, this has developed a confident European identity for all who took part and has raised their aspirations significantly not only academically but in possible options for the future and also made friends for life.