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Okulum: Mutlu Kariyer Atölyem
Start date: Aug 25, 2014, End date: Aug 24, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Early school leaving is both an individual problem because of the student's development and for the adoption of the risks involved and social problem due to the economic and cultural losses. Reasons as addictions ( smoking, alcohol, substance abuse), emotional traumas (stress, obsession, depression), negative emotions (anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, guilt, etc.) and phobias (school phobia) causes early school leaving especially, in high schools. According to "Vocational High School: A Matter of Country" report conducted in 2011,drop-outs focuses on the first grade of the high school and particularly in vocational schools. Early school leaving causes economic damages such as; loss of work load as well as brings some problems such as; single parenthood, to live dependent on others and to turn into crime (Shargel ve Smink, 2001). Our school consists of mostly female students and because of this, female population faces with the risk of not being included in both education and employment cases in the targeted size. School's proximity to slums, being away from socio-cultural stimuli, the lack of positive role models in their families prevent these students' creating a vision for the future. Moreover, until recently, the lack of guidance teacher at our school caused not doing an academic orientation required in this subject. Our school had a field study on early school leaving and its causes in 2007. From this date, the necessary measures were taken to solve the problem, but when the impact analysis is reviewed, the expected objectives are proved to be failed. Therefore, in the beginning of 2013-2014 educational year, a team called "Early School Leaving Prevention Team" is consisted of 12 volunteer teachers. This team revised the cause analysis of drop-outs and noticed the need of teacher training in developing new strategies to handle with drop-outs. Despite the common problem of drop-outs in Turkey, there are no courses on national level. Besides, within the framework of European Union 2020 Strategy, there is a special emphasis on some priorities. One of these priorities is to reduce early school leaving. Therefore, it is aimed to attend a course called "Energy Psychology in the Classroom to reduce early school leaving" and to share the outputs of this training with other teachers at school and to integrate the new techniques into classroom. The strategy of target training called "Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)" is a strategy that can be easily used by the individual himself in order to handle with psychological problems, school phobia, daily stress, addictions, anger, anxiety, sorrow, sadness, negative feelings, such as feeling of guilt, some problems, such as sleep disorders, exam anxiety, insecurity and irrational fear. We aim at creating a school atmosphere based on the motto of "I am getting the tips for my profession and my happiness at school" on students' minds. The basic mission of our school is to support the students as individuals who are optimist and ambitious in both their individual and career life. In other words, as a vocational school, Mamak Girls' Technical and Vocational High School aims at supporting pupils as individuals who not only has target vocational competences, but also has the capacity to be happy and to cope with the individual problems and the barriers in their lives. The participants are consisted of 9 branch teachers and a teacher of guidance and counselling. All of them has a teaching experience of 7 to 18 years. In addition, they also have class coaching responsibility. One of them has a master degree in English Language Teaching and all the others have the certificate of Creative Drama Techniques in the Classroom. They are all competent in English language. The participants are going to learn how to overcome the problem of early school leaving; to learn the methods and srategies such as "stress and anger management"; to develop a capacity of emphaty with the students; and to cope with the uncontrolled and aggressive behaviours. They are also going to study the reasons of early school leaving in detail, to involve the students in school efficiently; and share these new strategies with the other teachers through a seminar. They are going to practice the strategies at school and build a better communication with the teenagers at school. In addition to these acquisitions, their personal development, self confidence, cultural awareness and language competency are expected to be supported. The results and outputs of the project will be announced on school website, school magazine and local press. There will also be a 3-day-seminar with a certificate. This training is going to be organized at our school and then as an Inservice training seminar for volunteer teachers in Mamak district. Parent point of view will also be added into the training content in order to hold 1-day-parent seminar.

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