Erasmus Projects

"DEVELOPING STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE WELL-BEING OF THE WHOLE COMMUNITY".

PROJECT SUMMARY ;Over the past few years it has become more obvious that the number of children presenting with anxiety issues in school has increased significantly. This has led in part to increasing school refusal, pupil inability to attain their full potential, behavioural issues and mental health concerns. We as a school are of the opinion that this project will be of enormous benefit to our whole school and in particular to our children with special educational needs. We would like to explore and investigate how schools in other EU countries tackle these issues. We plan to promote well-being and to develop whole school teaching strategies which will equip pupils and teachers in the prevention of anxiety and which will in turn assist pupils to cope when faced with such difficulties. We believe that members of staff in each school will benefit greatly in their personal lives by being involved in the development and delivery of this project. Our main objective would be to produce a body of work in the areas of Mindfulness, Meditation, Yoga, Anti-Bullying, Resilience Strategies, Friendship and overall Well-being. We envisage that these could be either stand alone units or the combination of a few units. The lessons would equip the staff to give the children coping mechanisms/strategies that would in turn increase resilience, reduce anxiety,negate school refusals, raise awareness of mental health and help combat bullying behaviour. We expect to complete this project over two years. To accomplish our objectives we have divided the two year period into six terms. Term 1 Sept - Dec 2019 - Yoga. Term 2 Jan - Mar 2020 - Mindfulness Term 3 Apl - June 2020 - Meditation Term 4 Sept - Dec 2020 - Friendship Term 5 Jan - Mar 2021 - Anti-Bullying Term 6 Apl - June 2021 - Resilience Strategies It is our intention that each of the six schools involved in the project would be given a specific area for which they would lead the development . As the coordinating school we (Watergrasshill N.S.)will lead the first topic (yoga) and will devise lessons plans for the whole school. The other schools will be given a specific age group (all schools will be given a different age group) for which they must develop a series of lessons in Yoga. At the first mobility in November 2019, we as the host school will demonstrate what we have developed using our own classes. The other schools will then be expected to demonstrate their lessons (in Yoga) either with one of our classes or in video form with children from their own school. At the end of the visit all schools would leave with a body of work in the area of Yoga which can then be implemented in each individual school. These lessons would then be trialled in all schools prior to the next mobility.

We intend that the eTwinning platform will be an integral feature of the first mobility. We will demonstrate how the platform can be used to communicate between the partners , display material , ask questions, tease out solutions etc. At the second mobility, the first session will be spent discussing/adapting the previously trialled Yoga lessons. This will be followed by the new host school in Turkey demonstrating whole school lessons in their chosen area, Mindfulness. This mobility and all subsequent mobilities will follow the same format as that explained above for mobility one. At an initial face to face planning meeting which will occur before mobility one, each school will nominate lead personnel for the duration of the project. It will be the responsibility of the lead staff member (and subsequently the responsibility of staff members attending all mobilities) to highlight the importance of the eTwinning platform as a means of communication throughout the project. ETwinning/Skype will afford all schools involved in the project the opportunity to communicate their successes, concerns, problems and their solutions in a timely fashion. At the beginning of year two, a meeting is planned, using eTwinning/Skype to ensure that our objectives are to the forefront of everyone's activities. We will use eTwinning in the production and sharing of evaluation forms, parent/pupil questionnaires and end of project staff surveys. This will lead to maximising the potential of the project as it evolves and grows into the future. Our hope , at the end of this two year project is that we will have developed a bank of resources suitable for primary school children across Europe, encompassing the best practice from six different European states. We feel that the programme will benefit hugely the children in all the participating schools now and into the future. It is envisaged that through school newsletters, school assemblies, school websites , eTwinning, involvement with neighbouring schools, the Education Support Centres,cluster meetings, weekly staff meetings, sharing the project at in-service training and through staff contacts, that these resources will be disseminated far and wide.