"In the world of rapid changes, education seems to have become a big problem in many countries. It is needed to re-adjust the teaching process by empowering our students with competencies that can help them integrate and rapidly adapt to changes. In this frame, the project main coordinator identifieded the social inclusion as a starting point to develop these soft skills. All partner schools with quite same social-economical background in students' families worked in this direction. The Active and responsible citizenship project reunites 5 schools from Greece, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Our children are raised facing one of the greatest challenges societies face at a European level, diversity. As the young students, to which the project is addressed to, are still at the age when they are looking for role models, we believe that having in front of them teachers who practically promote the active citizenship encouraging social inclusion, offering their own behavioral examples in getting voluntarily involved in improving the life of the community will determine our pupils to be responsible active citizens of Europe. Through our project we aimed to make our students understand that active citizenship is the glue that maintains society together. The objectives we produced in our project were: -to raise awareness about active citizenship among 250 students from 5 EU schools during a 2 years project -to develop 250 students' knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to act as active citizens in their communities -to strengthen active citizenship as a lifestyle among students from 5 EU schools from 5 EU countries -to create an e-toolkit for schools, containing good practice examples for promoting active citizenship The project is addressed to 250 primary school students (8-12 years old) indirectly involved and more than 50 teachers directly involved in the project. We have carefully planned a series of activities that will lead to achievement of the project’s objectives using Social and emotional learning (SEL) strategy to help immerse students in the project development. SEL help participants to acquire knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to understand and manage their emotions, personal feelings, set personal goals, develop empathy awareness and establish positive relationships. Various instructional strategies (group discussion, role play, simulations, debates, multimedia presentations, outside speakers) have been used to raise awareness about active citizenship. The results of these activities were: 5 multimedia presentations ""What is active citizenship?"", 5 videos: “Cultural values in my country”, 5 seminars with a special guest, an outside speakers representing an NGO to talk about civic values and to promote the importance of volunteers have been organized in each partner country. By developing activities using SEL (comics, stories, group activities, team building games), we aimed to develop our students' knowledge, attitudes and skills as active citizens of their communities. To enhance students' social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision making and relationship skills, tangible results comics exhibition, magazine containing stories, 5 multimedia presentations ""Active citizens and environment"", 5 presentations ""My school, my city, my country"" were created. Thus, a common Erasmus+ garden. We wish that we build up active citizenship as a lifestyle, Active Citizens Clubs for students were created in all the 5 schools involved in the project. These clubs aimed to develop motivation and engagement for promoting civic participation in life on a long term. The students of the club got common T-shirts created within the project. One of the activities of the club had the obligation to create souvenirs and handicrafts for the project partners. Teachers developed 20 lesson plans using an interdisciplinary approach which was part of the Active Citizenship and produced the e-toolkit promoting active citizenship. Through this partnership we considered to promote active citizenship and responsibility, increase school cooperation with institutions from the local community, encourage schools to embrace Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs to improve students’ lives and their academic achievements, foster networking among students to continue organizing activities related to the project's topic, develop the school curricula and encourage interdisciplinarity in teaching. The participation in this project contribute to the development of the involved schools in the long-term by expanding the school curricula, especially internationalizing it, contributing to the development of qualitative teaching and to the institutional development plans, and promoting the schools’ image in the local communities. We consider that the Active Citizens Clubs in each school had the knowledge and sensitivities concerning topics as diversity, volunteering, environtment and cultural heritage continuing their activities after the end of our project."

The coordinator of the project called “Developing 21st Century Skills with Inspiration From Nature” is Poland, partners are Spain, Greece, Italy and Turkey.The duration of the project is 24 months.Totally 120 students of 12-14 aged and 40 staff will participate in LTTAs.The natural world is more than a source of beauty and admiration; it provides ideal opportunities to teach the fascinating world of STEAM and 21st century skills.Nature motivates students to learn, keeps them careful, creates their imagination, and develops their Math, Science, Art, Engineering and Technlogy skills using the five sense organs.The nature-inspired STEAM will reveal a powerful curriculum that teaches secondary school students a wide range of STEAM subjects and skills with an approach inspired by nature.Students will gain expertise in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics in cooperation with students from other European countries. Our objectives are; encouraging students to integrate knowledge among disciplines; creating opportunities for students to become 21st century innovative, creative, solution-generating, critical thinkers, interested in science and cooperating with others; to develop new content and encourage the integration of STEAM skills in the curriculum to enable teachers to teach STEAM subjects differently and more appealingly.The activities we planned to achieve are; project opening gala, forest activities, making nature people, insect hotels, solar cells, terrarium, bird feeders, 3D shapes, sundials; building towers and bridges; workshop about airplanes modeled after birds; object designing in the mud workshop; creating simple machines from natural objects and weather station; designing ecological and smart homes inspired by nature, solar ovens; making sun prints using sunscreen, nature collages using collected leaves and musical instruments from natural objects; restoration works; searching and recording the species data observed; discovering fractals in nature; designing mathematical structures using origami, Maker Competition, eTwinning seminar, STEAM Fair, entrepreneur pitch and speaker events and using Audubon Bird Guide and iNaturalist apps.Contact persons in partner schools, coordinator in the whole project are responsible for the project management. All schools meet once a month, fulfill the duties and responsibilities according to the 24-months work schedule and inform the coordinator from the result.The results are; Students gain STEAM skills inspired by nature, understand how mathematics, arts, sciences, technology and engineering work together, are interested in scientific professions, learn to think critically and produce solutions to problems. Students' awareness of STEAM issues and their ability to apply interdisciplinary integration, knowledge and skills are increased; Resources related to STEAM will increase, school staff and school quality will increase, integration of acquired knowledge and skills will be ensured in the curriculum, cooperation between partner schools and key stakeholders will be strengthened.Teachers will learn new practices to associate nature with STEAM; students will strive to benefit from nature, to be inspired and turn it into a product. Participating teachers will improve their professional competencies in European dimension.Students learn to relate STEAM disciplines, develop problem solving, critical thinking, questioning, creativity skills, and are interested in scientific issues.Teachers will learn different methods and techniques in European level, they can develop a more innovative curriculum by integrating good practices into their curriculum.Exchange of best practices in nature will be included in the curriculum of partner schools, so we will use the new knowledge and skills we have learned in our lessons and further develop them.Students will use their 21st century knowledge and skills in the next educational steps and be more successful.Key staff will share the project results and outputs with new staff who will come to school later, and will encourage them to take advantage of this experience.

Context The title of the project CONNECT drew on two main directions that the project was focused on - linking representatives from different cultural backgrounds – Polish, Italian, Bulgarian, Slovenian, and Turkish, in hand with the minority groups existing in some of these schools. We studied each other’s traditions, customs, lifestyles and found out the aspects that connect us and what differentiates us. The second direction was increasing students’ respect for the teaching profession. Teachers nowadays have a hard time managing students’ behavior during classes. This results from the fact that the teaching profession has lost the respect of the community. Therefore CONNECT achieved a lot about linking people – students and teachers from different cultures, facing various challenges, and created a strong, cohesive community in which all the members feel valued by the others. ObjectivesFrom monitoring and final evaluation, we have to admit that the aims were fulfilled. After the interviews with all the participants, observations, evaluation questionnaires, analyzing the project documents and reports we are able to estimate the type and quality of the competencies acquired.
O1. improved cultural awareness and acceptance of social, ethnic, and cultural diversity O2. improved communication and collaboration among actors in the school – students, teachers, parents O3. improved transferrable skills – data selection and manipulation, ICT, critical thinking O4. improved language competence (English and other languages) O5. increased students’ self-confidence and creativity O6. increased the respect for the teaching profession O7. exchange of experience and good practices among teachers dealing with similar teaching challenges Participants The target group was made up of students aged 12-14 in our schools – about 600 students. Out of these, 120 students are students facing social, economic, integration challenges – orphan students, immigrants, SEN students, Roma minority. Direct participants were 60 students ActivitiesDuring the exchanges, participants had an opportunity to present aspects related to their culture – multimedia presentations, lessons while interacting with each other and learning about the others. They learned about each other’s language, history, legends, music, hobbies, favorite games, etc. They created international games, legends, traditional dances, songs, and artworks.Ss and Ts swapped roles. At the end of each exchange, Ss and Ts discussed what they learned about each other, similarities and differences between countries. During the short staff training event at the end of the project, Ts shared common or innovative practices in terms of methods to use for bringing cohesion and enabling cooperation in multicultural and socially challenged classrooms. As a result, partners created a guide of good practices for tackling such issues which have become quite commonplace in European schools.Mobilities C1 - Italy - JAN 2019 – History and Music connections C2 - Poland - MAY 2019 – Legends and Hobbies C3 - Slovenia - OCT 2019 – Geography and games C4 - Bulgaria - MAR 2020 – Famous People and Customs - mobility canceled due to COVID 19 pandemic and transferred to the next year C5 – Turkey – JUN 2021 – joint staff training event C6 - Bulgaria - MAR-APR 2021 - Famous People and Customs - again the mobility was impossible to implement according to the pandemic situation in Europe and was held online Results Outcomes: increased motivation, better awareness of European cultural heritage, improved language skills and critical thinking, boosted self-confidence, strengthened the relationship between Ss and Ts; acquisition of values of tolerance and acceptance, increased self-confidence, more cooperative students, increased cooperation among teachers from European schools. Outputs: a collection of legends, collection of songs, folders with lesson plans designed by students, collections of country/school/history/geography presentations, students’ testimonials in the form of digital diaries, guide of good practices, certificates, management documents, reports, websites and media groupsImproved level of cooperation among teachers, students, and parents, which resulted in better dialogue and more projects in schools that involve all these actors. Parents were more engaged in school life, which led to an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual respect which will ultimately benefit in the future. Students developed their motivation, and appreciation for their teachers and the level of tolerance among peers. This led to the creation of a stronger bond with the school and an increase in the interest they show for all school activities. They learned to accept and embrace differences as part of a common cultural heritage. They also improved their level of English and knowledge of other languages, their self-esteem, confidence, which will enhance their school performance.

"The Embracing Everyone project has included schools from the UK, TR, IT, SI, RO involved in the project. It has involved pupils aged 6-15 across all five schools and has focused on the problem of social exclusion mainly due to a lack of basic skills and Special Educational Needs. In order to reach the common goal of inclusion across the five schools, we have researched, practiced and shared new strategies and methods of teaching cooperatively and inclusively at schools and during leisure time activities. We looked at the needs analysis at the five schools which was carried out through teachers' observations and application of a basic survey. From these observations and needs analysis we were able to put together some key objectives and a plan for our project which were, 1. to promote the inclusion of excluded students, the ones with a lack of basic skills, the risk of dropping out, with special needs by helping to promote their integration into the mainstream education and society 2. to apply new strategies for overcoming social exclusion, lack of basic skills and the problem of early school leaving 3. to conduct new methods in the field of social and emotional child development as part of students with special needs' practical curriculum4. to create a stimulating learning environment and approaches for supporting child's social and emotional development 5. to make available (assured) for the teachers different methods of education and share the good practicesIn order to reach the above objectives, activities and tasks were put in place in 9 stages so that all involved could gain a high level of engagement and outcome. Specific tasks:Stage 1:A10 -All project members from each school were selected by following and internal selection procedure, and specific tasks were allocated to each of the members.A11- Erasmus corners were organised at each school and where possible digital monitors were placed in order for the activities displayed to be visible at all times of the project.A12- The scope and objectives of the project were discussed within the schools and where possible, with local authorities by distributing flyers, brochures.A13- A local project launch conference was organised at each school and in Romania the project was also promoted at a local TV network (Curier TV- 12.09.2016) and in the localnewspapers (Argesenii, Curierul Zilei). A14- The UK coordinator prepared the initial questionnaire, evaluation forms and the observation documents.A15- The above stated questionnaire was applied to the target group and the results were analysed.Stage 2 was represented by the first Transnational Meeting in England (November 2016) which was carried out in line with the calendar and objectives.A16 - A calendar was produced by the English partners using photos from the project and distributed to all partners for the year 2018. Stage 3- C1- Italy visit in March 2017 focused on ""Peer Tutoring"".A17 - Distributed in June 2018 Stage 4 – C2 - Slovenia visit in May 2017 focused on ""Team Teaching"". A18- The English team took charge of the project website which is Blog based and has been added to after each mobility.A19 – The Slovenian team took charge of the project group in Twinspace/E-Twinning which has been added to over the two years the project has run. Stage 5A20- Evaluation of the first 4 stages and creation of the evaluation report was carried out by the Turkish and Romanian teams, as requested by their National Agencies. Stage 6 - C3 –Romania visit in November 2017 focused on “Project Based Learning” A21- Regular interchange of information was on going through e-mails, Twinspace, Facebook, the Blog, Whatsapp. A22- Book about the 5 new strategies was created by the Romanian partners, although each partner contributed information about the strategy they took charge of. Stage 7 - C4 - The Turkey visit took place in April 2018 and focused on “Personalisation” A23- The Turkish team designed and made a project magazine including all project outcomesSTAGE 8 - M1 - The second Transnational Meeting took place in England in June 2018 A24- Doing observation of all project issue and writing the final reports began in May and was discussed at length at the Transnational Meeting in June 2018 A25- Statistical analysis of Evaluation forms; Observation documents and Initial & Final questionnaireSTAGE 9ENDING - The project will officially end in August 2018."

This was a strategic partnership project with 5 primary schools from Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania and Turkey which concentrated on social and emotional skills of the students. The project actions were performed according to two main aspects - on one hand, the activities and short term exchanges helped overcome lack of social and emotional skills at an early age, on the other hand schools searched, observed, practiced, evaluated and transfered the good practices between each other. Our project allowed students to identify their emotions and enable them to use them to “facilitate their learning and their ultimate success at school”. Social and emotional skills which are result of the project are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal relationships and decision making skills. With these 5 competences, students are able to recognize emotions and emotional triggers, make and identify personal and academic goals, perform cooperation and team work and identify ways to resist peer pressure concerning unsafe or unethical activities.Project activities in accordance with the goal helped our students to improve their social and emotional skills as well as their basic skills. Students who had lack social and emotional skills were our project target group. We involved more than a 100 students in activities which were applied at every school. The students' age range was between 6-13. We promoted equality, tolerance,active citizenship with the integration of pupils with fewer opportunities and equal opportunities for all pupils and people from the initial or continuous system of education. Furthermore,we also promoted equality between sexes by our mixed groups of sport and study activities.At the very beginning of the project 5 subtopics were prepared in details during seminars and activities which were applied at schools. These competences were integrated into the school curriculum. At the beginning of the project a self-evaluation questionnaire was applied to students at schools and the needs were defined. According to these indicators a specific programme was prepared by the project team and then applied. The administrative staff and PTA supported the teachers in the course of the project. At the project meetings every step of the studies were discussed and evaluated. There were following partners and subtopics/activities/products:PL TM Interpersonal relationships/Applying Pedagogical Activities to improve interpersonal relationshipIT C1 Self-awareness/Creative Drama Activities/A video collectionRO C2 Self-management/Individual Sports Activities/ Tournaments at schoolsGR C3 Social awareness/Helping Abandoned Children/Visiting Abandoned Children and sharing toys and games/organizing an evening event involving visiting children, local children and guest children at the Ark.TR TM Presenting Decision Making Skills/Outdoor Orienteering Activities/Competition between students groups/Final evaluation and ReportThe latest mobility (C4) was expected to be held in Turkey, while the second TPM in Poland. Due to the political situation in Turkey and to the previous terrorist attacks the whole partnership by mutual agreement decided to achieve the final TPM in Turkey(instead of Poland -TPM is without students).It was decided to distribute the total number of the beneficiary students and teachers to other LTTs to Italy, Romania and Greece so that the total number of participants remains the same. Project activities initially foreseen to C4 were made by the project partner in their schools and then presented during the TPM in Turkey. All the objectives of the project were fully accomplished.As we planned the project team was created at each school. Erasmus+ corners were prepared. Digital monitors were placed. Posters and brochures were designed. Leaflets and brochures were distributed to the local authorities and schools in the region.Project teams were presented to the beneficiaries.Mini-conferences were hold for stakeholders. Initial and final questionnaires were applied.Photo books and calendars of 2017 and 2018 were prepared.CD/DVD with project works were prepared.A project website: https//socialandemotionalskills.wordpress.comA project group in Twin-space and E-Twinning platform were done.All project work was evaluated.A Booklet, a book of the project and workshops for final products & outcomes were done. The students and project teams regularly contacted each other.We strongly believe that our project helped our students:- to overcome lack of social and emotional skills at an early age to become successful in the future- to enable them to use emotions to make their learning easier and more enjoyable, thus making them achieve their ultimate success at school- to identify personal and academic goals, demonstrate cooperation and team work and identify ways to resist peer pressure to get engaged in unethical activities- to improve their ICT and language ski