In SYNAPSES, we present a vision of how pre-service and in-service programs on teaching for Sustainability Citizenship (SC) could be interrelated and enriched to develop a joint offer with a significant European dimension. SC has excellent potential for cultivating change agents who not only envision but also enact solutions to climate change. Teaching for SC can stimulate and lead to an action-including decreasing consumption and demand, developing sustainable food and energy sources, exploring nature-based solutions for the current challenges, using school buildings as teaching tools, and greening schoolyards. Arguing for a paradigm shift in how we view education. The SYNAPSES Academy could demonstrate how our education systems can create new levels of awareness and work toward a sustainable future. Teachers' impact will rise with the standards for environmental education, sustainability and combating climate change.SYNAPSES will set up the Erasmus+ Teacher Training Academy on Teaching for SC to ensure and safeguard the long-term impact of the proposed activities. A series of training activities (at local, regional, national, and international levels) will help teachers to design the most effective and engaging lessons that use innovative forms of instruction (inquiry-based, project-based, game-based) and tools (e.g., access to rich scientific data archives, virtual and remote experimentations, animations) in their classrooms. More generally, teachers will change their thinking about their students’ learning of and about the environment, science and technology. This will be expanded by offering concurrently opportunities for mobilities, such as study visits, job shadowing opportunities, meetings, conferences, and competitions to enable the Academy to become a forum for the exchange of knowledge. This information hub will support, develop and promote teaching for SC. A systematic accreditation mechanism will be designed in the framework of the project.

PHERECLOS builds upon the theory of science capital and the experience that Children’s Universities (CUs) have made in the Third Mission of universities. With their engagement with children and young people, they became intermediaries between various actors in the educational and social landscape. As translators of the concerns, messages and knowledge of other parties (incl. business and industry, the state, civic society organizations etc.) they help to dismantle institutional boundaries of universities towards a wider society. The project will establish 6 "Local Education Clusters" (LECs), which bring together schools and further relevant actors in the education ecosystem of a particular pilot region, supported by a peer mentoring programme. The LECs will be incubators for enabling a dialogue between various parties and help to set up joint activities in (formal and non-formal) education, which help to develop collaborative learning environments as experimental testbeds for schools. At the same time they impact on the quality of science engagement opportunities in these areas. PHERECLOS will implement a digital “OpenBadge” ecosystem which labels institutions as reliable and responsive actors and showcases all LEC parties to become real change agents in education. At the same time, this ecosystem will testify individual achievements with respect to STEAM engagement in formal or non-formal settings or even unintended learning outcomes. The regional effectiveness and impact will be monitored by academic transfer and implementation research and lead to the development of implementation guidelines and policy briefs to enhance the sustainability of the overall approach. PHERECLOS promotes the territorial dimension of local education clusters in all their manifold facets and their catalyzing role relating to access to STEAM and higher education, critical thinking and informed decision making in a wider societal context – including competitiveness and sustainable growth.

<< Background >>With more than 90% of the student population learning partially or fully from home during the last year, there is a stronger need than ever to reform schools and support teachers and students develop digital skills and competences (UNESCO, 2020). According to the 2nd Survey of Schools on ICT in Education, although one third of students in primary and secondary education attend schools that have written statements on the use of ICT for pedagogical purposes and digital technology (European Commission, 2019, p. 98), only a few European education systems refer to school development plans in their digital strategies. In European Education systems, school leadership rarely holds a prominent position in national strategies, and their training and support is even less (EC, 2019). The partners of this consortium have been working for many years together in various initiatives. With the pandemic impacting all aspects of life, they came together with a project, the DigiLEAD, that is based on a very specific need: to upskill the competences of school leadership teams to develop digital strategies. The leader initiated the process, and all 7 partners, from 5 EU countries, conducted detailed analysis of their local context, implementing a needs assessment focus group in each country to examine the challenges faced by schools. One of the key findings was the strong need to train school leaders to understand the complexities of digital transformation and how to implement digital strategies in their schools. This is also justified by the DESI (2020) data. According to the Digital Economy and Society Index (2020) data, with exception the Netherlands, all other partner countries Bulgaria, Cyprus, Portugal, and Greece, are below the EU average, with regards to the basic digital skills of all individuals aged 16-74. Greece and Portugal are also below 25% regarding effective integration of ICT in school education (OECD, 2021). In Bulgaria, the lead applicant country, the Institute for Research in Education conducted a survey, in July 2020, with 135 schools across the country, 4448 students, 5403 parents, 1885 teachers, and 135 school principals, showing that 67% of interviewed principals identify the need for additional training for teachers to develop digital skills and competencies. This highlights the important need for this project to further support digital transformation in the partner countries.As highlighted in a report by European Parliamentary Research Service (2020), modern education should shape and prepare skilled future European citizens, promoting equitable social participation of all in a digitalized age. According to the 2019 EU survey on the ICT usage in households and by individuals, the average percentage of people aged 16-74 that possess basic or above basic digital skills in Europe is only 56% (Eurostat, 2021). Similarly almost all partner countries showcase a low percentage: in Cyprus 45%, in Greece 51%, in Portugal 52%, in Bulgaria 29%. The only partner country exhibiting an above average percentage is the Netherlands, 79%. In line with the partners’ work and objectives for digital transformation and technology-enhanced education, the DigiLEAD project will support the consortium to further develop and improve their capacities to learn, collaborate, and better serve their target groups in their respective countries. Through the project’s results, specific strategies and guidelines will become available to the target groups, namely school leadership teams, teachers, learning designers, educational technologists, support staff and policy makers. Participation in this project will benefit the target groups in terms of improving their skills for strategic digital transformation. This will result in promoting learners’ digital capacities, sustaining the goal of the European Skills Agenda to develop the basic skills of people aged 16 to 74, by 2025.<< Objectives >>The specific objectives of the DigiLEAD are to: -Support School leaders and staff to develop a digital strategy-Develop school leadership teams competencies for leveraging free digital tools and resources for school improvement. -Develop a practical toolkit aligned with the DigCompEdu, with practical, step-by-step guides on how to design and deploy a strategy. -Adapt and use the SELFIE and TET-SAT tools to support the digital strategy development. -Develop the digital skills of school leadership teams and teachers.<< Implementation >>To achieve the objectives set, the implementation includes a series of overlapping phases, aligned with the results and the GANTT chart attached to this proposal:PHASE A-Project Management, Coordination, Communication, Promotion (M1-M24): an ongoing phase to address all the PM and admin aspects.-Project Initiation and Value Propositions (M1) - Following a discussion at the first partner meeting P1 and partners will outline the value propositions for strategic digital transformation, establish clear expectations, timeframes, and templates for all results.PHASE B -Result 1/Digital transformation Strategy Toolkit for School leaders (M1-7): ITD supported by CARDET will prepare the practical toolkit, with the guide and self-assessment tool with all partners' contribution. The first draft will be presented in M4 and the final draft in M8, at the online meetings.-Result 2/Training course for School Leaders on developing digital transformation strategies (M6-14): UNIC will work with partners to develop the training package. The implementation of this result includes a LTTA in M14; four representatives from each partner country will be trained, return to their countries and deliver the training program to 20 school leaders.-Result 3/eLearning platform with mobile app on leading with technology (M9-24): it will begin in M9, led by KMOP. Content for the eLearning platform/mobile app will be developed by all partners. They will consist of interactive learning materials, with gamified characteristics, relevant to the needs of the project.PHASE C -Result 4/Collection of case studies and policy recommendations (M18-24): a concrete EU policy recommendation report will be prepared, led by UNIC and ESHA, to promote the integration of strategies for digital transformation. The goal of this result is to fit the brief practical recommendation reports into policy directions.-Quality Assurance and Evaluation (M1-24): Municipality of Lousada will develop a solid plan and monitor the project, ensuring the quality of project products.Participants of all target groups in BG, CY, GR, PT, and NL will also participate at multiplier events presenting the project outcomes and discussing the relevance of the project topic.<< Results >>The consortium of the project will develop a compendium of learning resources and activities focusing on strategic skills and tools to support the development of a digital policy to be deployed by school leaders, involving school staff, teachers, learning designers, and educational technologists in the process.The expected outcomes of the DigiLEAD project are: -Improved capacity of schools and education systems for digital transformation -Improved competencies for school leadership teams, teachers and school staff to develop digital transformation strategies -Improved capacity of schools and education systems to engage in online education. -Improved understanding of parents on the factors influencing successful online learning and their role -Improved learners’ capacity to learn online The DigiLEAD material results include: -A comprehensive Toolkit for School Leaders consisting of concrete strategies for digital transformation and online education.-School leaders’ training material on developing digital transformation strategies that will be used during the LTTA and which will be made available for participants to use in their own practice with their schools-An e-learning platform where all project’s material will be uploaded and will be freely accessible, along with a mobile app on strategic digital transformation-A collection of case studies and policy recommendations for strategic digital transformation-Detailed project plan with all tasks defined by quantitative and qualitative indicators, as a guideline and monitoring instrument (approx. 20-25 pages in ENG)-Partner contracts that secure all rights and duties of the partners involved, including administrative, financial regulations and payments. (approx. 5p in ENG)-Quality management concept: the QM strategy and evaluation activities, tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities (approx. 30p in ENG).-Promotion and exploitation plan with all evaluation activities, deadlines, and responsibilities (approx. 15p in ENG).-Promotion materials in various formats (e.g., flyers, posters, promotional videos etc.)-Intellectual Property Rights: to ensure that the public has free access to all project results and to settle any kind of further developments and transfers (approx. 3-5 pages in ENG).-Promotion and exploitation reports: they document and evaluate all promotion activities throughout the project’s lifetime.-4 half-yearly reports: every six months each partner will provide a full report about all expenditure, content development and evaluation activities.-4 Peer group evaluation reports: partners will evaluate all levels of the project through four questionnaire-based evaluation reports.-Progress and final report: according to the requirements of the project as well as the documents provided by the NA, the partnership will submit progress and a final report (if appropriate).The DigiLEAD non material results include:-Partners’ active application of the project outcomes in their professional practices after the project’s completion-Promotional activities to inform the target groups, stakeholders, and policy makers about digital strategy in school education-Multiplier events in each partner country and a Final Conference in Sofia BG to coincide with the final transnational meeting (in M24), to share the project’s results with relevant stakeholders. -Increased topic-awareness of primary and secondary education school leaders and decision-makers during the project’s implementation (through active involvement in various phases) and after its completion (the results will be freely accessible through various means, to anyone interested).

Our schools should be incubators of exploration and invention. They should be accelerators of innovation. They should promote Open Schooling. School leaders should set a vision for creating learning experiences that provide the right tools and supports for all learners to thrive. Teachers should be collaborators in learning, seeking new knowledge and constantly acquiring new skills alongside their students. A holistic approach to innovation is needed. We need to facilitate the process with a provision of the necessary catalyst: This is the foreseen role of the OSOS Coordination Action, to describe and implement at scale a process that will facilitate the transformation of schools to innovative ecosystems, acting as shared sites of science learning for which leaders, teachers, students and the local community share responsibility, over which they share authority, and from which they all benefit through the increase of their communities’ science capital and the development of responsible citizenship. In this framework the proposed coordination action is aiming to support a large number of European schools to implement Open Schooling approaches by a) developing a model that promote such a culture, b) offering guidelines and advice on issues such as staff development, redesigning time, and partnerships with relevant organisations (local industries, research organisations, parents associations and policy makers), and c) suggesting a range of possible implementation processes from small-scale prototypes through to setting up an “open school within a school” or even designing a new school while it is testing and assessing them in more than 1,000 school environments in 12 European countries. The themes of the project activities developed and pursuit in participating schools that will take place will focus on areas of science linked with the Grand Societal Challenges as shaped by the EC, will be related to RRI and will link with regional and local issues of interest.

This two-year project, which was led by one of the main Headteacher organisations in England and Wales, addressed the problem of how to improve the performance of school leaders, particularly in their first few years of leadership. It built a partnership of six organisations from six countries, all of whom had direct influence on the practice of school leaders. The overall aim was to develop an induction, coaching and mentoring programme for newly appointed school leaders, which exploited the proven expertise and capacity of experienced and recently retired members of partner organisations/associations. The partner organisations were in a unique position to exploit this expertise and already had a clear picture of need at a national level. Three of them had a dedicated 'retired members section' to their organisations, which enabled the retired members to keep in touch with developments. All partner organisations had substantial experience of offering professional development. The objectives were to: • establish a database in partner countries of high quality recently retired successful school leaders and select a team of trainers • audit the priority needs of new school leaders across the partnership • set up an online platform about the project and to host the resources • create a coaching and mentoring programme for new school leaders • train the trainers • pilot the coaching and mentoring programme • evaluate and finalise the resources • create a set of case studies • disseminate and promote the resources • expand the programme into other countries There is much room for improvement to professionalise school leadership, to support current school leaders and to make school leadership an attractive career for future candidates. School leadership is a priority for the EU. This project focused on how to up-skill school leaders, particularly in their early years of leadership. This is seen as a priority in the ET 2020 agenda if progress to meet targets on school performance is to be accelerated. The project had a number of main stages each with their own milestones and indicators and was divided into 3 sets of Intellectual Outputs. These were: • An Integrated Platform, to host the project website, online resources and virtual community and network building tool • A coaching and mentoring programme for new school leaders and a set of pilot training modules • A set of final downloadable training modules for coaches, mentors and newly appointed school leaders, supported by an e-handbook The outcomes have been welcomed by members of the organisations and have been adopted into practice in the longer term.