Kiitos@21st Century Preschools is an early second language learning (ESLL) project, which aims to promote a High-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), in Portugal and in other European Countries, connecting different pedagogical approaches to support children’s global development, preparing and equipping them for the 21st century challenges. This project focuses on the needs of 2 target groups: Children in pre-primary education, from a local School Cluster in Ponte de Sor, Portugal, and the pre-primary teachers and specialized teachers (English, music and physical education) and school leaders. Given the wide range of approaches currently existing across EU, the partnership between 4 higher education organizations, from 4 different countries (PT, PL, IT, Tk) will focus on the issue of curricular quality and appropriateness, analyse and learn from Member States good experiences, in order to ensure the positive impact on ECEC. Hence, one of the main objectives of this project is to develop, with other partner countries, an integrated curriculum that combines the most effective, creative and innovative teaching and learning strategies to improve ESLL; and develop 21stCentury Skills: as Creativity, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication, Collaboration and Emotional Intelligence. Furthermore, Music education will be encompassed as it is a component which stimulates the development of a wide range of perceptual, physical, language, cognitive, and social-emotional skills. A second exceptionally important objective is to create a changing on the way teachers and school leaders look upon the learning process, and establish a commitment to develop a 21st century learning environment beginning at preschool. It is utterly important to change the mindset of school leaders and policymakers, alongside with creating a collaborative learning environment, where all learn. Fifty-seven people will be directly involved in the project. These are highly motivated children, Pre-primary, English and Music teachers, parents, teacher trainers and researchers. As for the activities, they are: 1. Kiitos@21st Century Preschools – Handbook guidelines 2. Development materials and resources for 21st century preschools in English Language Teaching 3. Development of materials and resources for Music Learning 4. Action research development – Scientific article 5. kiitos@21st Century Preschools approach in Early Childhood Education Program This innovative methodology will be an integrated approach which embraces ESLL (Early Second Language Learning), CLIL, Music Learning and 21st Century Skills in pre-primary education. We aim this project to have a deep impact on the educational community in general. We envisage children will be able to communicate in two languages, learn and develop cognitive and non-cognitive skills, develop critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, communication, collaborative work and emotional intelligence. Pre-service teachers will also benefit with it because they will have their initial training improved which will change the way they learn. And in due course, the results of this project will hopefully influence the educational policy regarding early second language learning in pre-primary education, and support a changing in policy. The potential benefits of this project will be: - More skilled young people, with solid foundations which will promote later learning to become more effective and more likely to continue throughout life, increasing the equity of educational outcomes and lowering the costs for society in the future; in addition it will contribute to support cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional development, of all children, especially those with a socioeconomically disadvantage, or with special educational needs, which will facilitate the early school leaving decrease; - The combination of Early Second Language Learning (ESLL) through a systematic exposure to a foreign language in the context of pre-primary education, encouraging development of appropriate curricula, which fosters the acquisition of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, whilst recognizing the importance of play, which is crucial in the learning process in early years. - The development of 21st century skills: creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem solving, and socio-emotional skills, which will have a great impact on the foundations of children’s entrepreneurial aptitude and ability in the future; - The implementation of a culture of changing at school which involves every member of the educational community, school leaderships and other peer organizations, teachers, staff, parents and children. As Charles Darwin says “It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”. We truly believe we will be promoting this outright important skill in everyone involved in this projec