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Focus op leren en welbevinden
Start date: Jul 1, 2014, End date: Jun 30, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Seeing how we are a school in a multicultural city, there is a large diversity within our class groups as students come from a very different social and cultural background. It is vital to differentiate and it is a great challenge to do so, since the goal of the school is to make sure every student can keep up with the program, especially in our first grade. But it’s not always simple to get students who are at a level considerably behind other students to catch up. Not only the teachers of the first grade but also the teachers of the higher grades are looking for methods to use these tactics on motivating students in the higher grades. Vesaala comprehensive school was willing to be our partner in this project. We were satisfied with this opportunity. Not only has Helsinki, capital of Finland, the same urban challenges as Antwerp. These cities also have the same population. Finland scores well in the PISA-rankings. Therefor we hoped that we could observe their good practices in pedagogical methods which have proved their use in the past. The participants of the project are one member of staff en four language teachers ( English, French, German, Dutch and Spanish) We were as much interested in methods for teaching foreign languages as in practices to preserve and prevail the well-being of every student and in the practices of student counseling of Vesaala comprehensive school. Naturally activating work forms are useful for every lesson and they will be observed and passed on as such. The activities we performed were job shadowing, sitting in on classes, keeping logs, exchanging lesson material, consulting with teachers (and students), (possibly) interviewing students and generally observing practices at both schools. Our contact was kind and thoughtful enough to provide us with a visit to a second school, the nearby Itakeskus comprehensive school. We hadn't planned this at first but this extra visit provided us with extra valuable information to complete our image of their student counseling practices and the Finnish educational system. The goals we achieved and wish to achieve in the near future are the following: • To gain insight into the Finnish education system. • To gain insight into how Finnish schools deal with students who have not mastered the native language well and students with diversity in social background. • To gain insight into the system of inclusion in Finnish schools. • To gain insight into the policy of educational career guidance in Finnish schools. • To gain insight into new pedagogical methods (e.g. team teaching, differentiation) • To gain knowledge and insight into how to apply new pedagogical methods in our own school. • Spread knowledge and insight into new pedagogical methods amongst school staff. • Heighten our intercultural awareness and promoting European linguistic and cultural diversity within the school team. • Evaluate our school policy on educational career guidance and possibly adapt it based on good real-life examples from Finnish schools (e.g. student counselors). • Evaluate our school policy on care and possibly adapt it, based on good real-life examples from Finnish schools. • Spreading good real-life examples concerning care • Educational career guidance and educational policies to increase retaining students who are behind other students when it comes to language or who come from less beneficial backgrounds • Heighten the success rate of graduation for all students by applying new pedagogical methods, and especially for those needing equal education opportunities • Heighten the success rate of graduation for all students by applying new care policies, and especially for those needing equal education opportunities • Have every student make a correct decision in terms of which fields to study, based on their talents. Further on in the report we provide concrete recommendations to heighten the well-being of every teacher and student. This project was our first international experience. On arrival students and colleagues were curious to hear about our stories. Some of them followed our webpage. Their reactions showed us that there is a lot of enthusiasm to continue our international projects in the future. The Erasmus+ program was unknown and unloved. Hopefully will get a lot of new ideas and opportunities to take part in a next Erasmus+project.
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