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Parkskolan Summery of the ECCE Report Year 2, 2004-2005

Staffan Hagström, Hélène Strömmer and Elisabeth Kristoffersson – working in the ECCE project group

During Year 2 of the ”ECCE” - European Citizens Challenging Education – project at Parkskolan different pilot projects have been run. Special measures have been taken to strengthen democracy/citizenship: increasing student involvement and cooperation with the local enterprizes, local community, human organizations and internationalization.

The goals for Year 2

The project goals for Year 2 were agreed on in the project meeting in Monza:

Each school will design its pilot project and publish it on the Freeway website, evaluating and developing it throughout the year.
The elements of each project will be linked to the strands identified last year ( School Talks, Youth Voice, Youth talks)
Freeway will incorporate a noticeboard to act as part of the Youth Voice strand of the project.

Special measures to reach the goals

1) All students in Social Science Programme and Media Programme have participated in their programme council.
2) A proposal for a new and more efficient student council has been presentated.
3) Students have written articles about their ECCE experiences in Freeway.
4) A special notice board for communication and comments has been formed in Freeway.
5) Teachers in the Industry Programme have prepared and carried through an introduction program for new students which aim to strengthen student responsibility and student influence.
6) Groups of students have in special projects in different subjects cooperated with organizations: For instance:

Students of Social Studies and Journalism have together with the local community organized a youth conference.
A teacher and students of Internationalization have together with Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation a school in Zambia prepared for a Dag Hammarsköld conference.
An action for the Tsunami victims was carried out together with the Save the Children Fund - the same day as the partnerschool Bishop Heber had their action.
A special theme day about Global development and aid was organized by Social Science students.

7) Some pilot projects have been disseminated through a special headline in www.freeway.org
8) A special homesite for the internationalization at Parkskolan has been prepared as a student project work.
9) More Young Enterprize groups have been working in more programmes than before.
10) A Biofuel project has been working – cross curricular and with associated partners in the community.
11) A seminar about democracy was hold by a teacher from the Mid Sweden University. All personal at Parkskolan was invited.
12)A special show-case for Parkskolan´s international projects have been built.

How the pilot projects have worked and how people have been involved

Pilot projects have been carried out in certain programmes – mostly Social Science Programme but also partly integrated in some other programmes. ECCE has been debated in all school in some special meetings.

In the Social Science Programme teachers involved have put stress on democracy and student involvement in ordinary lessons but also in different projects at school and with partners outside school.

It has been integrated through cross curricular and cross stage projects, theme days and influence councils etc. and have involved 11 groups of students, Year 1-3.

The projects influence on motivation and skills

As a result of the pilot projects the dialogue between teachers and students have increased. Students have got more responsibility. Teachers have appriciated the cooperation between involved staff and with the partners. Students and teachers have been more involved in the community.

Cooperation with the local community and associated partnership

The project involves different associated partners as the local community, the local UN organisation, the Save the Children Fund, ABF and so on.

We have cooperated with associated partners in different ways: organized special meetings, aid projects and found partners for student project works etc.

We have been working with the local community in many projects for instance in organizing a youth conference, a youth council and an open air-meeting.

Problems to solve

If you look at the project as a hole it is´nt easy to implement a wide development project in a big school with so many employee. We have tried to inform all teachers and headteachers in different meetings and to inspire them to run Ecce projects in their programmes. But if you look at the pilot project Year 2 there have been very few problems – the involved people have to cooperate, communicate and come up with ideas.

Evaluation and dissemination

To work with all students in the program council has been of great value. You really feel that students are involved in their own school conditions. To work with the different associated partners has been very stimulating. It´s very important for both teachers and students to be a working part with life outside school. We have also had a lot of benefits through our work with the international partner schools. Thanks to our ECCE project Parkskolan also has strengthen it´s reputation in the community. ECCE has also meant a good possibility to cooperate with many colleagues in school.

To involve teachers and students we had a ”pedagogic cafè” when we once again introduced the ECCE ideas and the pilot projects when all colleagues could sit in their working groups to discuss what they could do to increase democracy and involvment among students in their programme. After the project meeting in Monza participating students informed the different Social Science groups about their experiences from the meeting and their stay there. Participating teachers did the same to their colleagues in their working group. Articles about ECCE have been published in the local papers.

The project group has evaluated in continuing talk. We have also prepared and sent to the partner schools questions for an evaluation of year 2 to be discussed in next project meeting. The result of the ECCE project so far has been presentated for the colleagus in the ”pedagogic cafè”. Some activities have been presentated in Freeway.