"The Prevention of Social Exclusion in UK VET Schools " ("TPSE") is a project that aims to develop training and educational activities and programmes in the UK by learning new methodology and best practice from VET schools in Poland. We believe that the project will: develop new strategies, best-practices, methodologies, create new ways to engage minority groups and remove stigma and improve institutional practices. This project will enable VET practitioners to increase their understanding of educational systems and allow them to learn, understand and reflect on international ways of working which will enable them to create positive change to their institutional systems and processes. The UK has large numbers of socially excluded young people in vocational education and training, there are several factors which cause this which include; background, race, religion, interests, wealth and personality as well as people with learning needs due to teachers not having the skills and resources to be able to handle this is mainstream education. This creates divides in education and therefore creates minority groups and can lead to exclusion, bullying and even mental health issues in some cases. We would like to explore opportunity to improve these educational environments and would like to create an impact report and outcomes guide which we can present to Government and Educational facilities at a strategic level. The Key Objectives: We are keen to explore how European educational systems: - Identify methodology used to tackle social exclusion - identify how to create inclusive learning environments - identify and develop holistic approaches - identify the modernization of educational teaching methods - Monitor and evaluate improvements, progression and outcomes - identify methodology used to develop active citizenship We are working with 16 teachers from 8 vocational schools in Plymouth who have large numbers of migrant learners and learners who are of have been socially excluded. Based on our long term relationships and research among the local VET schools the principles and teachers have agreed and pointed that they would greatly benefit from the European exchange programme where they can experience and learn best practices from another countries educational system. All participating teachers are key to the development of vocational subjects in their school and have designed and developed programmes to support vocational learning. The participating teachers have an interest in their self-development, and an interest in how other EU countries schools work and deliver high quality teaching results. We intend to visit four different secondary and VET schools in Poland The daily programme will consist of: - Presentation of the School’s profiles, understanding how the school fits into the educational system including how it support students from minority groups and helps to create more active citizenship as well as preventing social exclusion. - Consultation/discussions with teachers – discussions about competencies, understanding methodology, review of example session plans and schemes of work, how do they develop the school to be holistic and inclusive. - Visiting sessions – Shadowing sessions to observe classes and gain a better understanding of how the sessions work in practice. - Session evaluation – Participants and Teachers discuss the observation and discuss the involved methodology and best practices to create recommendations for our educational system. - Group evaluation - The whole group evaluates the day and can add to their reflective journal. - Cultural - These focus on society differences to the UK, discussions about active citizenship and opportunity to reflect on the day and share experiences, and discuss competencies and skills. We believe that from this project we will be able to present our findings to the educational authority and disseminate these results to the rest of Europe, in addition to this we will create an impact report and report which we will disseminate though a wide variety of channels including; The institute for Leaning, Department for Education, Local education boards and directly with schools, colleges and other institutions. We believe that this project will help to create more inclusive learning environments, tackle bullying and exclusion and support positive change for learners. We believe that the longer term benefits of the project will include: - Increased knowledge sharing of professionals (teachers) - Decrease social exclusion in VET schools in Plymouth - Improved active citizenship - More active skills sharing and transnational working - Further transnational collaboration We also envisage that the project will support other organisations to participate in mobility projects, widen our partnership working and allow teachers to create or expand on their professional networks to continue the sharing of skills after project end.