"<< Background >>The need to test new ways of helping school children and teachers to develop key competences is widely recognised by education policy makers and international institutions like the EU, OECD, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The recent Conferences on ""Supporting key competences development"" (Brussels, 12-13 November 2019), ""Fusion Cities"" (London, 9th October 2020) and the presentation of the OECD Education 2030 Framework are examples of the consensus reached, at the policy and expert levels, on the need to change traditional teaching methods if transversal key competences are given the adequate importance. Not always this need is clearly perceived at the grassroots level, where discipline-based curricula and strict timetables tend to dominate the school routines. When schools, teachers, parents and students perceive the need of changing learning strategies and putting transversal key competences at the heart of teaching and on the front line of learning objectives, a promising process can start. This project is based on the awareness of needs at the whole school level in the partner schools and the support of specialised partners and networks that will make the project feasible and sustainable. Target groups addressed are students of lower and upper secondary schools who will be directly involved in the conception and development of cultural products, teachers of different disciplines (history, art, music, languages, digital technology, science and environment, etc.) who will constitute the project team in the partner schools and parents who will be invited to encourage and support their children in an innovative transnational learning experience which is aimed at developing a rich set of key competences for further studies, but also for life and active citizenship. The Project has the ambition to propose and experiment a holistic method to develop key transversal competences (cultural awareness and expression, citizenship, multilingual, digital, entrepreneurship, personal, social and learning) through a transnational experience of developing a cultural product (a piece of theatre, a musical, an exhibition including students' performance, a multimedia work, etc.) including historic research, literature and art history, music, performing arts and digital skills. Starting from the analysis and reconstruction of the life and works of local celebrities, or historical episodes connected to local history, secondary schools of different countries will collaborate in the development of parallel cultural products, learning from one another and being supported by families engagement and some specialised partners that will respectively help develop the performing arts and the intercultural and democratic citizenship skills. Each of the chosen histories will be presented to each other school to allow the understanding of the history of other countries and adding a different perspective to the discovery of European cultural heritage. The PERFECT partnership strongly believes that such an approach has the potential to lead to a deeper understanding of each other's heritage and history, thus supporting the achievement of what the EU Ministers of Education have called for in the 2015 Paris Declaration on Promoting citizenship and the common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education. Building on the mutual knowledge of local history is a simple but effective way to recognise commonalities and relationships between European peoples, and to value the achievements of the European Union in terms of peace, mutual respect and joint development towards a common future. This is in line with the required actions towards achieving the goals of the European Education Area, especially in the field of common European values.<< Objectives >>The PERFECT project aims at contributing to the innovation and quality of secondary education by developing and testing a teaching/learning strategy based on collaborative cultural production and intercultural exchange also through a meaningful, stimulating and interactive use of digital technology.The identified concrete objectives of PERFECT are:1) To stimulate and support the development of autonomous learning and basic research skills, creative thinking, collaborative attitudes and skills through the creation of cultural products based on local history;2) To organise and reward digitally-enhanced international collaboration of partner schools by supporting the exchange of good practice and cultural products originated locally by students' groups, interacting among them through digitally supported project work;3) To develop a review of the experiences conducted and produce a set of methodological instruments to support the replicability and dissemination of the PERFECT ""open model"" of action;4) To set up and promote a network of primary and secondary schools committed to participate in exchange of cultural products developed by their students and in a European Festival.The project is developed through a transnational partnership in order to properly develop the following features:- Cultural exchange: collaboration between schools of different countries allows pupils and teachers to share and learn about different experiences in diverse sectors. This leads to the identification of similarities, differences and new inputs and outputs;- Didactical innovation: by sharing experiences, teachers and, more in general, schools, can get to know innovative ways of teaching/learning and can therefore put them into practice in their local realities.- Openness to multiculturality: through cultural exchange, teachers and students have the opportunity to find out about other people's traditions and cultures, which can lead to feelings of cultural respect and understanding of other countries' cultural heritage.All these elements will contribute to the promotion of Global Citizenship Education principles, European history and cultural heritage and represent important assets to understand and adhere to a vision of Europe and the world as interconnected systems with commonalities and differences worth to be explored and understood.<< Implementation >>The project's central idea is to propose a learning innovation approach through which schools from different countries together develop a project-based method for the development of a cultural product. Teachers of different disciplines will concur to the design and development of these projects/products involving two classes in each partner school. Therefore the core set of activities will be implemented within, around and between the partner schools with the methodological and management support of the other partners (European Networks like FREREF, OBESSU, IPA, the IIHL with its hosted Education Inspiring Peace Lab, the Ministry of Education of Malta). The work programme is shaped around partners’ structured path to develop and experiment the approach to transversal competences through cross-cultural cooperation. The activities of the project will include:- Active participation and involvement of students (and teachers) belonging to two classes for each of the five schools participating in the project in the elaboration of a cultural product: school teams (teachers and students) will identify and study the life and works of a local character or a historical episode related to the local history (PR3). Through this activity, students will be stimulated to develop autonomous learning and researching skills, as well as creative thinking and teamwork. - Transnational collaboration and cultural exchange will take place between teachers during the whole project and will be enhanced through activities such as a three-day teachers’ training (LTTA) taking place in Italy, which will allow representatives of the partner schools teams to share their experiences and suggestions concerning the learning innovations to be associated to the development of cultural products, jointly preparing the design principles for the learning experiences to be developed in and among partner schools. They will collaborate in designing common features that the cultural projects and outcomes will share, to make them part of a coherent result, developed in different parts of Europe. - The five Transnational Project Meetings (including the Kick-off and the final meeting) taking place in Italy, Romania, Austria, Malta and Belgium will represent an opportunity for all project partners to co-create every final product and to share ideas and suggestions. Meetings are key activities in the project, since its final objective is to innovate traditional learning methods, through the development of a teaching/learning strategy based on collaborative cultural production and intercultural exchange.- Local communities will be actively involved in the project activity throughout all its phases. During PR3, when students will reflect upon the cultural product to develop, they will also create Community Maps which will identify the cultural resources and the local entities (theatres, cultural institutions, associations, etc.) which will collaborate with the school. Local communities will be involved also as audience during the four National Multiplier events, during which students will perform the cultural product that they developed (PR3). Representatives of all classes participating in the project will then gather in Sanremo during M25 to perform during the transnational Multiplier Event “European School Festival”. - The last Multiplier Event, Perfect - Lessons Learned for practice and policy, will allow to share the lessons learned through the project lifecycle in terms of multi-disciplinary project work, European history teaching innovation through intercultural exchange, developing creativity, collaboration and other transversal skills through cultural production projects. The experience gathered through the project activities will stimulate a participatory debate focused on how school and teachers education policies might get evidence and inspiration from the project results to invest in transversal competences in innovative and learner-motivating ways.<< Results >>The Project will produce the following Project Results:1. Conceptual model and competence framework for intercultural cooperative cultural production; This Output will be a key pillar for the project development, but will also be useful to stimulate reflection in other schools, who will be invited to comment and, if possible, to join the exercise at a later stage of project development;2. A Handbook for School Team Leaders, a more operational tool for the design and development of school-based cultural products;3. A set of 5 cultural products collaboratively developed by the partner schools and associated partner to be presented as good practices at the end of year two. It is expected that, during the third year, other schools and institutions will join the project, producing other final cultural products.4. A set of guidelines for school heads, teachers, students and parents, based on the evaluation of the first experiences conducted, to act as multiplier documents for newcomer schools5. A virtual showcase of school-developed cultural products, including a multimedia documentation of the development process, to be used as a set of inspiring examples for new classes and schools approaching the idea of developing their own cultural product Beyond the specific project contents and concrete Project Results, the PERFECT project will increase the capacity of partner schools to innovate learning design and international collaboration, and will help develop key transversal competences for students, thus producing a substantial impact at the respective local levels. Among other effects, the project will substantially increase schools’ capacity to work transnationally - and online- on complex activities and to enhance their network of international partners, not only schools but also European Networks and other stakeholders.By disseminating the experience gained and its Project Results through the Festival, the project also expects to produce a significant impact on many more schools, that will be invited to join the collaboration platform developed by the project, to share experience and to develop learning outcomes that are recognised as extremely important, but usually not easily developed within the school systems.It is also expected that, through the access to EU Networks (OBESSU, FREREF, Lifelong Learning Platform) and the to the EU collaboration platforms (eTwinning, ESG), some positive impact can be achieved at the EU level. The presence of national and regional education authorities, including those with curriculum definition authority, is expected to produce a multiplier effect in the school system of the territories where partners are based."

"The European Pillar of Social Rights has defined education, training and lifelong learning as the first priority for equal opportunities and access to the labour market. The phrasing of this priority: ""Everyone has the right to quality and inclusive education, training and life-long learning in order to maintain and acquire skills that enable them to participate fully in society and manage successfully transitions in the labour market"" shows that the European Union is considering education and lifelong learning in a holistic way, putting skills, competences and knowledge in the centre. The main emphasis of all education policy efforts in the European Union have been along the axis of inclusion. The inclusion of people with disabilities is, at the same time, a legal requirement as the EU as well as its Member States have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD). The right, responsibilities and duties of parents as the legal guardians and primary educators of their children is defined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that is also ratified by all EU Member States even though not the EU itself. The UNCRC and the CRPD also clearly define the duties of public actors in supporting the protection of rights as well as in catering for the needs of parents and guardians. The EU primarily has a disability policy in place that also emphasised the importance of inclusion. Some of the project partners have worked together on a previous project, ELPIDA that was chosen for the Zero Award 2020 as a unique approach supporting the parents of people with intellectual disabilities (PWID), especially of older children. There was a wish and urge to continue developing tools for parents, but also to support them in the inclusion of their children. Thus the focus of this project is still on parents as a primary target group, but also focuses on the needs of parents with smaller children. The European Disability Forum, in their praise for ELPIDA also called for more support for parents in a general context where disability programmes usually focus on independent living, leaving out the most important support network from financed innovation. For this to be achieved, we are especially targeting parents of children with intellectual disablitilies (ID), but for inclusion to become a reality the secondary target group is the general parent and professional educator/social worker community. What we are using as a baseline in this projectis the needs of parents of PWID, but also general needs of other groups that PWID are to be included into. This way, ouraim is to make parents conscious of the importance of inclusion regardless of their being the parent of a PWID or not. This, in turn, will then make institutions as well as other places important in the life of children more inclusive to make a move towards universal design throughout Europe. We see a very important role for professionals in it. Thus we are also aiming at offering them role models to better understand the otherness of PWID as well as the possibilities and advantaged of their inclusion in institutions, especially schools, for their lifelong inclusion in society.Thus the first aim of the project to establish a learning community of parents of PWID to help them overcome everyday challenges and for them to become warriors of social inclusion, and the second aim is to support the inclusiveness of institutions, especially of schools to create a strong base of societal inclusion of PWID, but also of people with other disabilities. Utilining the possibilities that the digital world can offer we are aiming at providing the information material via an e-platform to make it free and accessible to all, at any time and any place.This project aims at providing parents of children with visible and non-visible disabilities (inculding behavioural difficulties) the necessary skills and knowledge in order for them to be competent and confident to provide the right support and empowerment to their children. This will have a direct positive impact on people with disabilities and will lead to better transition to adulthood, social inclusion, and better quality of life in general."

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 >>The PARENTS ENGAGE project will enhance the teachers’ capacities to design effective responses for school - family links, informing refugee parents to be actively involved in their children education. For this to be achieved, PARENTS ENGAGE is addressing the multiple needs of its target groups, as follows:a) Teachers: Considering the increased flow of migrant and refugee populations since 2015 in Europe, schoolteachers struggle to work in multicultural environments, by improving the education of disadvantaged migrant and refugee students being in peril of ESL. As such, school staff needs to respond effectively to these challenges and be trained in multicultural environments on how to support these students and their parents. The project emphasizes on the provision of consolidated tools and training material for teacher staff, effectively supporting their professional development. b) Parents: Migrant and refugee parents’ participation in school life is hindered through multiple barriers and challenges within educationa and society. There is often less engagement by them in school processes and in their children education while many migrant students lag behind in educational achievements. Strengthening parental inclusion in local structures could enhance their involvement in their children’ education. PARENTS ENGAGE will focus on this potential, by leveraging the knowledge and initiatives already carried out by CSOs in collaboration with schools on parents’ engagement in school education and in schools system. c) Students: migrant and refugee children tend to show lower academic performance compared to non-migrant children or are more likely drop out school. Thus, they need a safe and inclusive environment enabling their school life’s integration. The active parental involvement can lead to higher academic success, more time spent on homework, and fewer discipline problems, with all features remedying disadvantage and tackle students’ Early School Leaving (ESL). Hence, the enhancement of migrant children’ education, by focusing on educational interventions that increase the refugee parents’ involvement in their children education, is a primary aspiration of the PARENTS ENGAGE project.<< Objectives >>PARENTS ENGAGE aims at: reinforcing teachers’ skills in fostering productive relations with migrant and refugee families, supporting migrant and refugee parents to be involved at their children’s schools,improving education and tackling ESL and disadvantaged migrant and refugee children in primary and secondary education. Since parental engagement can be a vital step towards this direction, the core objectives of the project are:1) to capitalise on the experiential knowledge of CSOs working with migrants and refugees by researching and evaluating their relevant practices,2) to provide evidence-based teacher training for enabling teachers to strengthen parental engagement at school so as to improve the academic performance of children and avoid ESL,3) to reach out migrant and refugee parents directly, providing tailored support materials for increasing their school engagement.<< Implementation >>PARENTS ENGAGE has envisaged to implement the following activities:Result 1 (Collection and analysis of innovative initiatives engaging migrant and refugee parents in school life): A1: Mapping on identification and collection of innovative practices developed by CSOs, aiming at increasing the parental engagement in children’s education. In light of ensuring a more comprehensive approach, relevant practices will be explored at a school level in the participating countries; A2: Assessment and categorization of practices based on concrete criteria, so as to further showcase their characteristics, and elements which facilitate the refugee and migrant parents’ engagement in their children’ school life. Result 2 (PARENTS ENGAGE Online Platform with interactive training materials for teachers): Α1: Development of PARENTS ENGAGE Online Platform with interactive training materials for teachers; A2: good practice case studies, enabling the familiarization of both teachers and refugee and migrant parents with them; A3:Training materials designed for teachers supporting them in adopting innovative practices of parental engagement; A4: Information Packages for parents; A5: a small-scale pilot in schools. Result 3 (PARENTS ENGAGE Mobile application for parents): A1: Determination of User Functions; A2: Determination of application contents; A3:Program Interface Decision; A4:Program Interface Design; A5:Database Design; A6:Determination of database associations; A7:Integration of the interface into the program; A8: Programming user functions and general functions of the program; A9: Testing the program; A10: Elimination of errors considering feedback received from parents; A11: If necessary, making necessary changes in the database and program interface; A12: Translations in local languages for facilitating that this result will be available on a multilingual basis, while a final Test shall also be implemented during the Multiplier Events.Result 4 (Digital storytelling of teachers and migrant and refugee parents’ experiences with parental engagement in school): A1: Provision of guidelines on the strategy to be followed in each of the participating in the consortium countries; A2: Production of digital storytelling videos in close collaboration with parents and teachers in each participating country. Result 5 (Policy Recommendations for migrant and refugee parents engagement in schools): A1: a relevant desk research will be conducted in each partner country; A2: analysis of data and synthesis of ideas, consultations and deliberations with relevant stakeholders, publication on the project’s platform, and dissemination plans to promote the reports to governmental and EU-level policymakers.<< Results >>In terms of quantitative results, the project’s targets, growing also through dissemination activities, are the following: - PARENTS ENGAGE will directly reach out to 500 students of primary and secondary education in the participating countries and their parents.- At least 28 in-service teachers will be directly trained through the PARENTS ENGAGE teachers training and learning activities.- More than 500 teachers and school heads will be reached through the Open Education Resources available through the project’s online platform (R2).Regarding qualitative results, the project will benefit students’ academic and social experience, capacity to continue the school and even seek further education as also their sense of belonging to school community and society. As for parents’ capacity to become more engaged in children’ education, the materials and support provided will make them feel more empowered and enabled to partake in school activities. In addition, two main types of outcomes will be produced:1) Reports and studies: current practices will be researched for the gathering any developed wisdom and applied innovations into a comprehensive mapping of innovative practices in multicultural classrooms with a specialised focus on parental engagement (R1), the most challenging but necessary area of practice (BRYCS, 2018). For this purpose, the practices of CSOs will be scouted for innovative practices. Ultimately, a policy report with recommendations (R5) will be produced to support policymakers in designing effective policies.2) Innovative teacher training and parental engagement materials: PARENTS ENGAGE will develop a useful and comprehensive set of interactive online training materials for teachers (R2) who need to develop their skills in working closer with migrant and refugees for their students’ benefit and for tackling ESL. Also, a detailed and easily accessible set of guides through an Information Package for parents (R2) (translated in all partner languages) but also a mobile application (R3) to navigate them into the school system to be empowered to better support their children education will be developed during the project. Finally, a set of audiovisual materials (R4) will be produced, inspired by the ‘digital storytelling’ approach, whereby participating parents and teachers will share their experiences with the PARENTS ENGAGE program and how school-level parental engagement affected their lives.

High-quality education is a key driver of economic growth and social progress. Despite large investments in education over the past few decades, the quality of education in some EU countries has stagnated or even deteriorated. Marginalized populations are particularly vulnerable to the negative consequences arising from inadequate educational policies. Understanding the efficiency and (cost-)effectiveness of investment in quality education is crucial for allocating resources to where they could have the largest economic and social impacts. The EFFEct research project has been established as an impact-driven initiative that aims to provide evidence-based policy recommendations to improve the quality of education. By investigating the effectiveness and efficiency of education systems and specific policies in EU countries by using (quasi-)experimental evidence, EFFEct advances knowledge in several critical areas, including diversity, equity and inclusion; teachers, trainers and digital transition; instruction and (adult-)learning. EFFEct has four interrelated objectives. Objective 1 offers novel insights on diversity, equity and inclusion by investigating targeted programs for disadvantaged students as well as religious and elite schools. Objective 2 investigates how teacher shortages can be mitigated and examines the role of digital environments. Objective 3 evaluates policies related to instruction, admission standards, and upskilling and reskilling of adults. Finally, objective 4 analyzes how the efficiency of EU educational systems has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic and establishes the main policy levers and qualitative insights that may explain efficiency changes. EFFEct brings together a multidisciplinary research team of economists, sociologists, (neuro-)psychologists, teacher trainers, education scientists, mathematicians, and sustainability and operational research experts from four European research universities, a research institute and a NGO.