The partners in the project recognise that there are many barriers to pupil learning and progress in our schools which are both individual and shared.

It is the intention of the project to clarify the nature of these barriers through research in the school community, and to implement strategies to remove them in the individual institutions. The views of parents and teachers will be sought through in-depth interviews, discussion and questionnaires. The same techniques will be used with students by using opportunities within existing curriculum time. This will ensure that a large proportion of the student population will be actively involved in the project, both in research and evaluation.

Existing school evaluation processes, will be fundamental to the work of the partnership both in identifying problems and monitoring improvement strategies. We believe that the strength of the partnership lies in the sharing of existing solutions, and implementing common approaches to new problems and monitoring their impact.

1. What are the concrete aims of the project and its expected impact on the participants and other interested parties (on the pupils, teachers, institutions, local community, wider educational community)?

• To establish what barriers to learning exist in the partner countries

• To analyse in depth the nature of those barriers through the views of:

students

teachers

parents

To share and disseminate good practice in removing the barriers

For each partner school to implement strategies that will improve learning for pupils

To monitor and evaluate the implementation the impact of these strategies,

To embed this cycle of evaluation in the school process.

To disseminate the findings of the project to the school community using:

• Seminars

• Networks

• Reports

• Webpage

• CD-Rom

• Media

Impact :

It is expected that the project will make a significant impact in removing barriers to learning in each establishment and thereby improve the quality of education for students. Through the processes used to establish the barriers to learning in our schools, there will be a greater awareness of the problems by teachers, students and parents alike. The sharing of these issues by the schools involved will lead to the formulation and implementation of strategies to overcome them over the life of the project. Morevover the schools’ organisation and curriculum will be adapted to accomodate the resultant outcomes.

2. Which activities do you intend to carry out in the course of the project?

Please provide a general overview of the activities planned for the whole project duration (i.e. max. 3 years for a School or School Development Project; max.2 years for a Language Project). This question relates to both project activities which are planned to take place locally within the participating institutions, as well as to transnational mobility activities1 for staff and pupils.

Activities can only be described in general terms because they will depend on the outcomes from the initial research in the schools.

Priestnall School

Sursik skola

Robert-Schuman-

Institut

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