„Strengthening Thinking and Learning Skills" is a collective project of 7 participating organisations with the common mission to reduce disparities in learning outcomes affecting disadvantaged learners, underachievers or children with learning impairment through introduction of more effective teaching methods. The participating organizations work with a wide range of clients from children coming from marginalized Roma communities (ETP Slovakia) to children with special needs (The Feuerstein Centre of the Netherlands, Inclusive School Cluj) to underachieving children in mainstream schools (Charlie-Karlín, Czech Republic, ) as well as talented underachievers (National Centre for Special Needs Education and Psychology, Lithuania) and ordinary schools (Czech Republic, Lithuania). The motivation to start this project is based on observation that besides financial or political obstacles, many children who have functional and/or learning difficulties, who are culturally different or come from poor socio-economic background very often experience barriers to learning originating in attitudes or (lack of) competences of teachers, peers, parents, (lack of) assistance, etc. A practical problem emerges each time the teacher enters a cognitively heterogeneous classroom with the aim of providing students with skills necessary for successful formal education - with cognitive development, not only development of knowledge and academic skills. These are secondary to the development of more transverse cognitive skills or executive functions, such as: the ability of sustained attention, to refrain from impulsive behaviour, to expand working memory, to compare and to use an enriched language.The project wants to develop course materials and training courses for teachers to implement those approaches in their work that are focused on developing transversal cognitive skills and thus to help children to adopt better thinking strategies.The project also wants to make links between content free FIE programme and content rich situations in the classroom and between psychological assessment and school assessment enriched by dynamic principles. It wants to advocate an environmental perspective and promote activities shaping cognitively complex environments and coaching the school context towards accommodating and teaching all children, including the ones with difficulties.To that purpose, the project will organise a series of expert meetings, trainings and workshops where research results will be exchanged, new approaches taught, international experience collected and disseminated. Training course will be developed, tried out and publications - articles, reports, a book & DVD - will be produced, in order to disseminate knowledge about these innovative approaches.The project´s aim is to demonstrate that learners with difficulties can be integrated into mainstream schools and society when national curricula of mainstream schooling are complemented by innovative MLE approach that seeks to correct deficiencies of disadvantaged learners in an appropriate manner.