Portugal

  • Dissemination of the project on the school webpage (www.esfmp.pt)
  • Creation and updating of the blog (edulivingeduleaving. blogspot.pt) to disseminate the project goals and activities 
  • Regular meetings with the project team to plan and monitor the activities carried out.
  • Organization of the Erasmus Corner
  • Students’ research on the partner countries, cities and schools
  • Students’ discussion on the meaning of participating in an international project – poster with conclusions
  • Exhibition of the works on the Erasmus+ Corner
  • Meeting at school (project participants – teachers and students – and school headmistress ) 
  • Topic: school dropout rates, most common reasons
  • Challenge: find innovative solutions to prevent school dropout
  • Students’ debates in the classroom on the reasons for school dropout
  • Research on early school leaving in our school, in our region, in Portugal and in Europe – statistics to be presented in Turkey
  • Training session on Statistical Literacy 
  • Training session on Rules for the professional use of Facebook
  • Powerpoint presentation about the Portuguese National Educational System and the existing database on school dropout in Portugal, in our region and in our school
  • Powerpoint presentation about our school and Almada
  • Competition to select a slogan and a logo for the project 
  • Participation in the first transnational meeting in Turkey
  • Design of the project t-shirt with the slogan and logo of the project proposed by Portugal and selected by the partners. Each partner made the t-shirts to wear them during visits and current school activities in order to advertise the project goals and disseminate the project
  • Surveys (for students and teachers) on reasons leading to dropout
  • Creation of graphics with the obtained results
  • Session at school for all the project participants with representatives of institutions involved in researching and dealing with school dropout
  • Follow-up discussions with students in the classroom 
  • Powerpoint presentations (photos and text) about the evolution of school life in the students’ hometown or their parents’ hometown for a better understanding of today’s school. The best six photos were printed on format A4 and a short comment on this topic was written on each photo. These photos were sent to Poland, before the transnational meeting in this country, to be used in a photo exhibition 
  • Competition for the selection of short texts on the evolution of education (30-40 words). The best was sent to Poland to be integrated in a common exhibition together with other partners’ texts
  • Selection of two innovative games and activities for team formation, acquaintance and breaking ice between the team members, to boost confidence, promote teamwork, etc. They were sent to Turkey and the booklet with all the games collected was put to the project web
  • Participation in the second transnational meeting in Poland
  • Work meeting with a representative of the Ministry of Education
    • Topic: School dropout 
    • Discussing strategies to prevent early school leaving
  • Interim report
  • Raising awareness activity: decoration of the school with posters with quotes, proverbs and good sayings about education
  • Reception of the new students (school year 2016/2017)
    • dissemination of the Project (goals and activities carried out)
    • information about the planned activities for 2016/2017
  • Creation of the document – Getting to know our schools – Guidelines for students’ group work, to be used during the transnational meeting in Italy
  • Participation in the European Day of Languages – students shared their intercultural experiences and knowledge acquired during the international meetings
  • Edu-Living & Edu-Leaving dissemination event to provide information on different activities offered by project participants in order to motivate students to come to and stay at school
  • Participation in the third transnational meeting in Italy
  • In Italy:
    • the effects of the project were presented through activities that were tested at Fernão Mendes Pinto School to reduce dropout;
    • students presented and discussed proverbs about education; 
    • students discussed ways to change school in order to reduce early school leaving;
    • students discussed and filled in the Guidelines (Getting to know our schools); 
    • students presented life stories from interviews made at school with students/adults who had dropped out
  • Organization of a training session on the topic : Tools to evaluate students’ well-being at school, by Wim Simoens, member of the Eekhout Academy in Belgium – a well-known training center for education specialists
  • Strengthening bonds with project partners: students designed, selected and sent Christmas cards to all the partner schools
  • 2nd training session (via skype), on the topic : Tools to evaluate the educational process, by Wim Simoens
  • Workshops on the creation of school newspapers
  • Launching Peer Counsellors’ action:
    • training sessions for Peer Counsellors conducted by the school psychologist 
    • selecting target classes and students 
    • scheduling activity milestones 
    • conception of special kits for different moments of the experimental work 
    • first contacts with teachers and students of the target classes
    • beginning of a reflective journal and collection of written impressions and comments concerning the work done in one of the target classes
    • regular contacts and meetings with students and teachers involved in this strategy
  • Organization of the event “EDU Day”
    Aims:

    • calling attention to the project and new activities (dance workshops, radio, school newspaper, sports);
    • showing that students can change the school atmosphere and get more motivated by carrying out new projects and activities;
    • developing the cooperative work between older and junior students 

Organization of the fourth transnational meeting in Portugal:

planning the meeting programme

  • deciding on icebreaking activity 
  • organizing visits to school, to Almada and to Lisbon 
  • organizing the 3rd training session with Wim Simoens Preventing Early School Leave by Improving the Motivation of Students
  • preparing presentations providing (further) information on Almada
    • the Educational System in Portugal
    • dropout in Fernão Mendes Pinto School 
    • projects in Fernão Mendes Pinto School 

Common activities during the meeting in Almada:

  • Sharing Experiences – a work session on the project implementation in the partner schools
  • presentation by Fundação Benfica: A successful sports project to prevent early school leaving 
  • work meeting with FMP School Vice-Headmistress and representatives of different institutions (Ministry of Education, Municipality, other schools) on School Dropout 
  • teachers’ activities:
  • draft of final products and preparation of the meeting in Greece
  • meeting with representatives of the Municipality (presentation of the project’s aims and activities, and discussion on the dropout situation in the partner schools)

students’ activities:

  • dramatization of stories on school dropout (previously written and sent to FMP school) 
  • different presentations concerning:
  • tasks on the visit to Almada
  • project song (written and interpreted by students)
  • general impressions on the meeting

Farewell activities:

  • lunch prepared by Portuguese host families
  • Portuguese traditional dances
  • farewell dinner 
  • Video spot on dropout 
  • Monitoring younger target students, until the end of the school year, in order to improve their motivation, attendance and school results (peer counsellors’ action) 
  • Organization of events (sports/dance) to strengthen the sense of belonging to school and increase students’ motivation
  • Participation in the fifth transnational meeting in Greece
  • EDU week – event for the dissemination of the activities of the project with:
    •  dance
    •  radio
    •  exhibition
    •  new edition of “Somos Fernão”, the school magazine
  • Contributions to the project final products
  • Conclusion of the “Reflective Journal” showing the evolution of the peer counsellors’ action in one of the target groups.
  • Surveys and work meetings for the evaluation of the project. Target groups:
    • target students
    •  students belonging to the project team
    •  school teachers involved in the project activities
    •  teachers’ project team
  • Creation and dissemination of graphics with the project evaluation results
  • Distribution of certificates of participation to the students who got deeply involved in the project activities
  • Participation in an exhibition on the topic: “Fernão Mendes Pinto is a school with projects”
  • Planning how to keep using and improving strategies and activities tested along the project implementation to prevent student dropout (the school has decided to adopt the project experience with peer counsellors in all the 7th and 10th form classes in 2016/2017)
  • Planning the dissemination of the strategies and activities tested along the project implementation, together with the obtained results, in other schools (the project coordinator has been invited by the advisor for the Portuguese School Library Network to meet teachers at local and regional level and talk about the Peer Counsellors experimental work and its benefits, in the context of a programme promoted by the Ministry of Education aiming at improving school success).