Sharing Important Differences Enrich - SIDE

In our schools today, students' social inclusion is a great need especially for those who are sociallyexcluded for different reasons. Not only the refugee students, but also those who stay at homebecause they are disabled or suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders (NPD) or are being bullied.Students with unstructured families and/or economic problems are also at a disadvantage oftendisplaying poor performance at school.
Developing innovative teaching and assessment methods will strengthen leadership in educationincluding distributed leadership and teacher leadership. A ‘whole school approach’ is important as itengages the entire school community (school leaders, staff, learners, and families).
SIDE will enable us to foster the development of social, civic and intercultural competences forstudents in a better manner than today and strengthen the profile of the teaching profession,including teachers, school leaders and teacher educators.About 500 students and 40 teachers/school leaders will participate in this project, out of whom, 84aged between 13 to 18 will come together at Teaching and Learning Activities. Participant teacherswill specialize in areas such as ICT, PE, Languages, Music, Arts, Sciences Maths, and Special Needs.
When the project starts, the Swedish school will carry out an online survey for all schools to fill in.This survey will cover issues such as social exclusion, difficulties within school or in a new countryand other issues relevant to SIDE.
Before the first meeting in Greece, the students will be working on writing poems about friendshipand solidarity. They will also develop and present photos and video stories about daily school lifefocusing on difficult situations experienced at school. While in Greece the Portuguese team will builda Robotics Kit and give instructions to every school on how to assemble it. Between the 1st and 2nd meeting, each school with their students will build and program a robot using the robotics kit suppliedby the Portuguese school.
During the meeting in Portugal, we will present each school ́s robots and demonstrate their work.There will also be a workshop presented by one of our teachers, on Robotics. We will visit a Socialand Cultural Association that works with young persons in underprivileged neighborhoods, many ofwhom are students at the Portuguese school.
The Italian team will introduce the rules of the BASKIN game, a new sport invented by an Italian PEteacher, inspired by basketball with modified rules, that allows everyone to play. Between the 2nd and 3rd meeting, the teams will learn and prepare the BASKIN game.
During the meeting in Italy, the BASKIN game will again be explained and played into the court and atournament will be organized. Also, we will maintain connections and hold activities with otherAssociations which cooperate with our school, working on social inclusion. We will also organize avisit to Matera, the cultural capital, for 2019.
The Swedish team will give instructions about the creation of the short stories on the topic friendship,tolerance and solidarity, to be presented in Stockholm. Before the meeting in Stockholm, the students will write and share those short stories.
Students will write lyrics and rap texts in English and pass it on to the next country as a relay. The raptexts will be set to music in each school and the song will be practised in all four schools. The outcome will be a performance for the whole school where the rap song will be presented.
There will be a lecture on special needs by the SPSM association. After the last meeting, theSwedish school will distribute the final survey to evaluate how well the issues of the project havebeen handled and how successful the project has been.
Methodology to be used while carrying out the project
• Teachers will share their experience and didactic methods with colleagues from the other countriesthrough their scheduled Skype meetings
• Students will work together in groups to achieve common goals
• We will apply the methodology of peer teaching/learning, allowing students with better knowledgeon a particular topic, to help his/her colleagues
• The students' contact with foreign peers will make them more open to accept and welcome newand different students at their school. Be it students with Special Needs, including NPD, or studentsfrom different ethnical, social and economic backgrounds.
• Teachers will be motivated, as they come in contact with colleagues from different backgroundsand share experiences which will be used to improve methodologies with a view to applying themeffectively in the future.
• The successful relationships between teachers will lead to future collaboration, thus increasing theschools' EU dimension.
• Techniques and Good Practices will be applied not only to current students, but also to futuregenerations of students.