Skip to main content
European Innovative Teaching Award
Project

A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body

School: Collège Boris Vian

Topic(s) addressed

Positive self-esteem was developed through the implementation of 279 actions in a consortium of schools, the use of new technologies, foreign language, school subjects, mobilities, CLILE, training courses, conferences, and congress. With regard to school education, the project’s goal was to support schools in tackling Early School Leaving (ESL); establish and favour social ties; integrate the school’s artistic, health, creation, environmental, and scientific worlds with appropriate and specialised artistic, pedagogical and medical help; reduce perceptions of differences between populations; build creative and innovative minds; and, develop, transfer, and implement innovative practices. Furthermore, the project promoted skills and competencies acquisition by using peer education to increase awareness on physical and mental wellbeing; coordinating a common project on the topic of a healthy mind and body through artistic, pedagogical, educational, and cultural activities; favouring cooperation and communication between European countries while comparing different teaching, working, and thinking methods, as well as by examining different schools and professional systems; improving oral communication skills with foreigners and disabled people; and, promoting long-lasting cooperation between schools.

The project’s horizontal considerations was primarily on social inclusion, which increased students’ awareness of being European citizens; allowed them to share concrete experiences and note similarities between their issues, share their results and creativity; and, facilitated the immersion of external participants into schools and foreign institutions during meetings. The primary objective was to improve participants' quality of life and integration into society by using higher quality education services as a platform. The project’s teams shared their ideas, practices, and professional experiences with experts from their respective countries, as well as other European countries. Moreover, due to cooperation between organisers, schools, families, community centres, and health protection structures, no student had failed during their participation in the project as a result of individual difficulties. Skills that were evaluated in this project included students’ ability to adapt to new situations and improvements in their autonomy; their ability to respect behavioural codes and school rules; their ability to provide detailed accounts of experiences and their willingness to express personal opinions and reactions on any given topic; their ability to communicate confidently and fluently in a foreign language; their ability to act independently and responsibly; their ability to integrate into new friendship groups and partner families; their cultural awareness; general knowledge; critical thinking skills; and, their willingness to undergo new experiences and activities.

Target groups

The project’s target audience consisted of two groups. The first was made up of Finnish, Romanian, Spanish, English, and French college and high school (consortium) students between the ages of 13-17 who were selected through open calls using online tools and school conferences, with French students having already been integrated into the Erasmus+ class at the beginning of their school year. According to the selection process’ evaluation system, bonus points were awarded to students who came from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds (35% of participants). The partnership’s aim was to motivate and strengthen the participation of students with fewer opportunities, focus on teacher-student involvement, and ensure gender balance among participants. The second group consisted of the Erasmus+ team, which comprised teachers and staff from each school; the establishment’s principal; the project coordinator (responsible for the project’s methodology); the mobilities coordinator (responsible for maintaining contact with families and authorities while monitoring students’ everyday school lives and weekends); the project manager (responsible for calendar coordination of activities, competency validation, progress verification, and final product development); the managerial accountant (responsible for finance, payments, and estimation and budgetary security); the promotion and communications manager (responsible for the dissemination of results, regular intramuro and outdoor exhibitions); and, the external supervisor (responsible for the project’s contractual relations and the organisation of mobilities).

Methodologies

The project’s collaboration initiatives revolved around facilitated interactions towards developing college and high school students’ and teachers’ adaptability to the school curriculum. Every coordinator was responsible for contacting local specialists, with productions being multidimensional. Each month, teachers from various subjects (French, History, Arts, Sciences, EPS, English, and Mathematics) were mobilised for review and preparatory meetings, within which a number of considerations were discussed (the agenda, Erasmus+ group-clubs, selected classes, ULIS, Segpas, schedules for foreign students, evaluation of work decisions, balance sheets, methods, task distribution, troubleshooting, activity scheduling, and task allocation). These activities were then followed by post-mortems, debriefing sessions, and transfers, with a number of publications presenting our results (spanning 2018-2020) being published. All 279 actions were published on the www.eurekorpus.com blog, within which actions’ primary topics, targeted skills, aims and descriptions, and results may be found. The activities, which revolved around 6 sectors for a period of two years (2018/2019: Communication, Environment, and Creation; 2019/2020: Science, Health, and Humanity), were organised for an hour, a day, or a week, and took place either inside or outside the school, with the presence of external actors (contingent on the project partner’s preferences). A booklet, titled “Results Mobilities EUrekorpus,” was produced for each mobility exercise. The mobility exercise included a one-week teaching/learning student exchange, unofficial meetings to standardise work formats in preparation for the 2-year project, and workshops during International Congresses (Finland and Spain) where exchange students were able to present and share their best practices. Another publication, titled “Results Actions EUreKorpus All Links,” detailed general project activities (divided into 6 sectors) that were implemented by all project partners, encompassing 221 curriculum activities, 103 school actions, 118 cooperative actions between schools in the same country (peer education with universities, and upper and lower secondary schools), and cooperation efforts with external partners. A number of activities were also proposed based on students’ active learning processes, including an Open Educational Resource containing a manual of good practices; e-books on written products that were shared online; digital posters printed in A-3 format for display on the European panel and in the school hall; PowerPoint Presentations detailing students’ findings following research activities; online newspapers extracts consisting of interviews, description of activities, report exchanges, and project feedback; digital documentary films (podcasts) of oral and practical outputs; online quizzes (Google forms); large-format paintings with the output of students’ brainstorming sessions, ideas, and solutions; surveys and statistics reports complete with graphs; a catalogue of new products; website and social media networks (Facebook, YouTube, Overblog, and eTwinning); official music, dance, and drama performances from school/town theatres; written mobility reports (magazines, blogs, and articles); and, congresses that had been held in Finland and in Spain. In sum, this project was designed to assist students who suffered from disabilities, or who were in any form disadvantaged with regard to group activities; students with insufficient key skill competencies (who were then encouraged to work in concrete actions that were both intellectual and manual); and, students who required other approaches towards improving their self-confidence so they could share their personal ideas on wellbeing.

Environments

Innovative teaching and learning approaches were developed by promoting unified awareness, social willingness, and a respect for diversity; developing creative talents through the setting up of manual and intellectual activities; discovering the creative process; capacity-building for joint cooperation and communication; improving teachers' professional training and knowledge of other cultures through lessons in foreign languages; and, by comparing different methodologies. Also, innovative approaches were encouraged by promoting sympathetic awareness, social volunteering, and respect for diversity; learning the origins and impacts of scientific discoveries and implemented policies; facilitating a positive impact on personal development, health, motivation, and one’s future professional life; analysing young people's problems and providing them with the means to solve them; facilitating equal opportunities for participation; presenting a variety of activities across different spheres within the 6 sectors; and, by supporting an integrative approach to teaching and learning.

Teachers

Cooperation and communication among teaching staff was made possible through the use of a number of tools including emails, schools’ official websites, blogs, schools’ intranet, Skype, social media platforms, and TwinSpace (mailbox, teachers' and pupils' forums, and chats), with official information shared through an eTwinning account and EUrêKorpus’ Facebook group. New technologies were largely used during curricular activities in the creation of end products, and for the sharing of ideas for activities, meetings, mobilities, and responsibilities. During the project’s implementation, all instructions regarding project activities, results, meetings, pictures, and videos were uploaded on the www.eurekorpus.com blog. Each school was responsible for proposing 2 teachers to coordinate communication activities between the principal, account manager, the teaching staff, host families, and parents, in addition to assisting students both in and out of school. Each member was assigned a supporting role (informative, reflective, educational, scientific, social, or linguistic) with each school having a designated coordinator responsible for administrative tasks, record keeping, planning, evaluation, and certification; moreover, using non-EU funds, a meeting was organised in Romania where partners defined actions, and the organisations that were responsible for said actions. The participation of external professionals in the project’s meetings was a crucial asset, with evaluation of activities also proving to be a critical element. Recognition and validation of mobility periods was carried out on Europass and validated on Mobility Tool, with schools providing students and teachers with personal diplomas to indicate acquired skills and competencies in parallel with EU system 10. Skills acquisition was verified with students (with the grid having been defined in the competency base), as well as parents, institutions, project teams, associates, and internal organisation belonging to relevant institutions. Lastly, students’ motivation for participating in the project also functioned as an important indicator.

Impact

Successes with all 279 actions was essential with regard to school policies and municipal services operating in the fields of education, sport, youths, and social insertion. The purpose of the study was to develop a multi-domain experience for social inclusion through the use of a universal and timeless theme in order to bring about a positive vision of oneself as a success factor. This is an important consideration, given that each individual deliberates on their place and position in society, which carries implications for regional and urban development. Undeniably, integration cannot be treated as an isolated phenomenon that is either locked in time, or limited solely to the duration of this project. Moreover, the dynamic normalisation of social and cultural relationships with various other social groups, including those with disabilities, served as an instrument to gauge the project’s success. The project’s impact on participants was ensured through fruitful collaboration and rewarding activities, with elements such as social and community politics, sports, and culture contributing greater understanding towards the development of future projects. Exchange between individuals, professionals, and managerial staff was a part of the project’s targets, as was the exchange of underlying best practices, with connections that were formed between schools having led to teachers’ mobilities and multilingual educational networking activities. Furthermore, through professional exchange, reflections on such themes led to an opening up of new areas for exploration that at the time had yet to be imagined. Intellectual outputs (copies of newspaper articles, evaluation reports, research publications, photos, achievements, television journals, short films, dance shows, meeting reports, Facebook posts and exchanges, the eTwinning and European Platforms, and other outputs) took the shape of action cards (350 pages) that are openly accessible, with no time constraints. In conclusion, all members and students of participating institutions learnt new teaching methods (leading to a learning process that was heightened in its attractiveness and effectiveness); benefitted from end products in the further development of learning outcomes and future cooperation; and, learnt to appreciate and maintain European partnerships through a deeper understanding of such partnerships’ impacts and results.

image

 

Project category
Secondary education
Project year
2021

Stakeholders

Participants

Archbishop Sentamu Academy

Address
United Kingdom

Colegiul Economic "Dionisie Pop Marţian"

Address
Romania

Institut Martí Dot

Address
Spain

Lycée Jean Bart

Address
France

Ristijärven keskuskoulu

Address
Finland