European Funding Opportunities for my school

Guidance to submitting a KA1 Erasmus+ application for the Creativity through Early Years Science Education training course

Organised by Ellinogermaniki Agogi

Ellinogermaniki Agogi

Ellinogermaniki Agogi School• 2000 students (4-18 years old)• 250 teachers• 55 years of operation• Focus on German Language Learning and STEM subjectsResearch and Development Department • 21 researchers in educational technology• 150 international projects• 20 years of operation

Expertise

Effective Community Building – International Network (more than 10,000 science teachers, 5,000 schools across Europe)Teachers Professional Development (Training materials, National and International courses, Workshops, Conferences)Design of Innovative Scenarios combining advanced technological tools, science and art (augmented reality applications, 3D environments, Global Science Opera)Assess the impact of the interventions in real settings (setting up large scale experimentations involving numerous schools, teachers, students)

What is Erasmus+

• The new EU programme for Education, Training, Youth, and Sport (2014-2020) -> special focus on teachers’ professional development.

• The successor of the LLP Comenius Training grants -> individual teachers

• Never before has there been so much EU support for teachers' professional development through mobility in Europe!

What is new in Erasmus+• Applications are not submitted by individual teachers anymore. They are

submitted by schools. • The school applies for a project that can include more than one activities:

training courses or partnerships with other European schools• The application includes a ‘European school development plan”• You can re-apply this year even if you have applied and been funded in the past!• One single application per school for all planned training activities abroad

during a specific period (selectively for 1 or 2 years)• Names of school staff and specific dates do not have to be listed in the

application • One application date per year- Next Deadline February 2nd, 2016, 12:00 CET

So, your school needs to apply for you, as well as for any other of your colleagues!

How to apply

• Detailed instructions step-by-step available on:– Creativity through Early Years Science

Education training course website (cls.ea.gr)

– ERASMUS + National Agencies (http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/tools/national-agencies/index_en.htm)

The application • Download the application from the website of your

National Agency- Make sure it is the final one!

• First section: – Factual data about the school defined generally as

“organisation”

The School European Development Plan

1) The needs of the school in terms of quality development and internationalisation:

– What are the areas or competences that you need to improve in your school? • E.g. staff competences, language competences- possibly linked

with European dimension, skills for new teaching methods and tools, school management and organisation.

TIPS! • Carefully monitor the actual needs in every aspect of your school-

organize a meeting with the rest of the staff! • Identify specific training (courses etc.) or mobility activities that can

serve those needs! • Study carefully their objectives, methods and skills/ competences

they are addressing

TIPS! • Clearly link those needs with the improvement of the quality of

education offered by your school and with reaching European standards.

• Add information on the profile of the school to support the needs that you identified: e.g. Area of the school, socioeconomic background, type of school, students and students’ families backgrounds, possible drop-out rates, access to other European schools, teachers’ and staff ’s skills and needs to deal with possible obstacles.

Our school is situated in XXXXX. The composition of our staff in terms of experience and attitudes to school development is mixed: We have a big number of young and newly appointed teachers, who are more open to experimenting and trying out innovative practices, while almost one third of the staff has more than 20 years of teaching experience, and displays more reluctant attitudes towards changing established patterns.The strengthening of creative teaching and learning is an important goal for our school in order to fulfil our classroom objectives and be able to sustain and support young children’s creative potential which is viewed as aligned with the acknowledgement of the need for empowering today’s students to become tomorrow’s creative citizens. We also consider science education as a thematic area that offers potential for the development of creative teaching and learning, particularly in our school where a number of teachers have expressed lack of confidence in their teaching of science, mostly linking this to limited subject knowledge and lack of dedicated training in teaching science.Also, one third of the pupils come from migrant backgrounds and there is strong need for dealing with cultural barriers both on the part of the pupils as well as on the part of their parents. However we have a strong vision to develop, improve the quality of teaching and to thus provide equal learning opportunities for all our pupils. The fact that we are practically a school with multilingual and multicultural pupils creates the need for persevering their national identities, in parallel to helping them integrate in the school community.

Indicative example of a school aiming to participate in the Creativity through Early Years Science Education training course 2016(Note: This is just an example touching upon a limited number of issues, the actual application needs to include all issues concerning the school

2) Please outline the organisation's plans for European mobility and cooperation activities, and explain how these activities will contribute to meeting the identified needs

TIPS! • Fill in the section with your planned activities before completing this

part of the European development plan. • You must give here a summary of these activities (training courses)• Use the information provided on the course website (cls.ea.gr)• Explain what measures you are taking in order to avoid disrupting the

regular function of the school, e.g. Creativity Summer School -> during Summer holidays.

Our project is of two year duration in order to have long-term effects on the development of our school, and will spread from July 2016 to June 2018. It includes a series of international training courses that focus: a) on promoting creative approaches in teaching science, with a particular module on improving teachers’ attitudes and skills, b) European school networking, c) ADD HERE ANY OTHER TRAINING COURSES or MOBILITY ACTIVITIES YOU WANT TO INCLUDE. By engaging our teaching staff in these types of training we intend to bridge the gap between teachers in our school, by empowering the core of already innovative-friendly teachers, while also mobilizing the more reluctant part of our staff to shed resistance to change , and also equip them with skills that will enable to respond to new teaching practices throughout the curriculum and general open-mindfulness towards promoting creative approaches to teaching and learning.

Through the proposed series of training activities we also expect to improve the skills of our teachers to better cooperate with other school staff, as well as teachers from all over Europe. The activities that we are presenting in the framework of this project application are thus aimed at also actively networking our school with European schools, that –among others- can help the teaching staff exchange practices, become familiar with other educational systems and be part of a Community of Practice connected to the promotion of creative approach to science teaching and learning.

Example (indicative to a school aiming to participate in the Creativity through Early Years Science Education training course 2016)(Note: This is just an example touching upon a limited number of issues, the actual application needs to include all issues concerning the school

3) Please explain how your organisation will integrate the competences and experiences acquired by staff participating in the project,into its strategic development in the future?

TIPS! • Describe the practical application of the new knowledge acquired-

How will you put them into practice? E.g. describe specific school-based activities that will put these new skills into practice

• Describe follow-up training activities -> How will this new knowledge be sustainable and updated?

After the completion of the Summer training course on Creativity through Early Years Science Education , and as of September 2016 we intend to implement school-based activities that aim to promote creative teaching and learning approaches in science and adoption of new teaching paradigms. This is planned to take place by establishing an approach to organising classroom activities in collaboration with other teachers in our school while reaping the benefits of our contact with professional development tutors and teachers from other countries during the training course. Staff from the school is also planning on attending the …. Training Course held in… to improve their skills and competencies in …

Example (indicative to a school aiming to participate in the Creativity through Early Years Science Education training course 2016)(Note: This is just an example touching upon a limited number of issues, the actual application needs to include all issues concerning the school

Other fields of the application

• Participants’ role: Profiles of the staff who will participate in the activity- no names yet!– Describe the criteria and process for choosing the staff

• Preparation of participants: – Consult the description of the course – Creativity through Early

Years Science Education Summer School “Preparation” – Consider the language of the course – Describe how you will organise the preparation of the participants– Remember that a dedicated part of the funding covers

participants’ preparation!

• Evaluation:– Consult the Creativity through Early Years Science Education

Summer School section on “Follow-up”

Please contact your National Agency!

- Erasmus+ Programme Guide: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/documents/erasmus-plus-programme-guide_en.pdf See “Key Action 1: School education Staff Mobility”

• The new application form for schools: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/discover/guide/2015/documents/school-education-staff-mobility_en.pdf

Creativity through Early Years Science Education training course

http://cls.ea.gr

Course Aims and Objectives

The training course aims and objectives promote the overall objective:

To foster creative approaches to science teaching and learning in preschool and the first years of primary school.

More specific aims and objectives of the training course for early years educators include:• to use inquiry-based science education approaches in early years settings• to experience how creativity is manifested in the science classroom• to use creative approaches in teaching science • to develop positive attitudes towards learning and teaching science and creativity• to act as innovators, researchers and reflective practitioners• to engage in communities and partnerships with other stakeholders (other teachers, parents, professional associations, experts,

etc.)• to develop understandings about the Nature of Science• to recognise the potential in everyday materials and the importance of observing children’s use of resources to gain insights into

their developing explorations and thinking• to explore the ways in which tasks can be designed with appropriate resources to support collaboration and how they can help

children to collaborate effectively, encouraging them to articulate their ideas and exchange and evaluate these• to experience the different purposes of inquiry and the ways in which everyday learning activities can be opened up to allow

greater opportunities for problem solving and creativity• to be enabled to use different forms of questioning and reflect on their productivity in different contexts, as well as ways of

encouraging children’s questions, particularly their scientific questions which have the potential to be generative and/or evaluative and thus support their creativity

• to reflect on the purposes of recording, selecting approaches appropriate for purpose and different ways of representing and expressing ideas, as well as recording as a process, to support thinking, reflection and dialogue.

You can use these particular objectives to get a better idea of the skills and competencies promoted in the

training course and use them in your application

Important steps to applying for a KA1 grant

• Register your school/organisation on the European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS), if not already registered

• Log in to the Participant Portal with your ECAS account details and register your organisation on the Unique Registration Facility (URF) to obtain your unique Participant Identification Code (PIC), if not already registered.

• Download the application from the website of your National Agency• Start filling in each of the sections using this presentation and the

course website (cls.ea.gr) to accurately portray your school needs• Fill in and submit the application form to your National Agency. The

deadline is February 2, 2016, 12:00 (noon), Brussels time

Support

For further support please contact• The hosts (Ellinogermaniki Agogi)

Dr. Fani Stylianidou(fani@ea.gr)Dimitris Rossis(drossis@ea.gr)

OR

• Your National Contact Point………… (…..)