"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."

This project includes five primary schools from UK, IT, PL, GR, TR. It will be applied with the pupils aged between 7-15. The project focuses on the problem of social exclusion (in terms of lacking basic skills). In order to reach this goal of inclusion we will practise new strategies and methods of teaching cooperatively and inclusively at schools and during leisure time activities. This application refers to the particular needs of students according to the needs analysis which took place at all the partner schools. As the project group, we discussed and defined 4 issues which prevent children succeeding at school.(1-Lack of social inclusions; 2-lack of basic skills; 3-Lack of parental support; 4-Lack of socio-economical needs). The needs analysis has been done in five schools by taking the observation of the teachers’ view, taking consultant teachers’ ideas into account, applying basic surveys which evaluate these four obstacles. We came to the following conclusions: in UK, it seems they have no problem with 1 and 3 but they need to increase the level of basic skills and help some students who have problems with number 4. Other schools have problems mainly with number 4 obstacle. In Polish and Italian schools, “lack of social inclusion and basic skills” of the students are seen as the most important problems which prevent students from achieving academic success. In Turkish and Greek schools “2-lack of basic skills, 3-lack of parental support, 4-lack of socio-economic needs” stands for the first reason for failure. Besides, each school has different good practices in their school curriculum (see related sections). The students will be observed and followed by the teachers and best practice will be transferred across schools after evaluation. The strategies and methods which we agreed upon to apply embody plenty of ideas which stand for a real alternative to solve these four problems. Before creating this project we had a pre-work period about the new strategies and defined 5 new ones to use in our project. Every partner will apply one of these methods in its school environment, observe and evaluate the outcomes. During the meetings these outcomes will be discussed by all the partners and will be transferred to one another. At the end of 2 year time, 5 strategies will have been applied and evaluated. According to the observation and results of success the partners will continue to use these strategies and methods at their schools. OBJECTIVES-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. -to apply new strategies for overcoming social exclusion, lack of basic skills and school drop out.-to conduct new methods in the field of social and emotional child development as part of students with special educational needs' practical curriculum. -to give teachers different methods of education and share the good practices. NUMBER AND PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTSStudents/teenagers: The project will take excluded students in the centre, so 180 in total will take part actively in the project activities. Approximately 1200 students/teenagers will be indirectly affected. Teachers/Adults: there will be teams of 5 teachers at each partner organisation so 30 in total will take an active part in the project. There will be a teacher of English, Maths Teacher, a Counselor, an ICT teacher and a PE teacher/trainer. Approximately 150 teachers/adults will be indirectly affected.Administrative staff: The head teacher/chairman and a deputy head will take part in the project, approximately 36 administrative staff will be indirectly affected.Families: The number of the family members will be 300 in total and they will contribute to introduce the host country’s culture, tradition and to prepare traditional food for an international evening. Local community: Local community including local press, municipality, directorate of national education and PTA will help to disseminate the project to a wider community. RESULTS AND IMPACTSThrough our project the five partners intend to create both short-term and long-term tangible and intangible results and to achieve the biggest possible impact on future projects and policy processes such as leading students to overcome lack of self-esteem, setting up the project website in order to provide continuous access to the general information of the project activities, progress and results, writing newspaper reports and creating on-site panels or leaflets to inform other people about the project’s background and main results, arranging a multiplier event, communication, and cognitive skills of students at risk, cultivating effective partnerships between trainers, educators, and community organizations.

Today’s education is no longer about memorising, but about creating a context in which students make sense of what they are learning and enjoy the experience in such a way that they do not feel burdened by the amount of input. Unfortunately, however, we constantly struggle with the problem of demotivation and lack of interest in school that prevent our students from attaining better school results and we try to provide them with the drive to expand their learning, an attempt which is rarely successful. According to recent theories, using gamification in class is proved to provide a solution to these problems. Games, in any form, increase motivation through engagement. Gamification is about using gaming elements and apply them in non-game settings.