Funded by the Erasmus+
Programme of the
European Union
We are bringing you the second newsletter of the WELCOME project that is coordinated by the Nakladatelství Dr. Josef Raabe s.r.o. publishing house. It is an international, Erasmus+ project that falls under Key Action 2 (KA2), with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bulgaria as participating countries. Our partners include Charles University in Prague, the Research Institute for Child Psychology and Patho-psychology in Bratislava, Institud za psihichno zdrave I razvitie in Sofia, the online agency M7 in Bratislava, as well as elementary schools and kindergartens in all the individual countries, which participate on the development and testing of the main outputs. These are Kindergarten Mirotice, Kindergarten and Elementary School Zubrohlava, and Kindergarten Prikazka bez krai in Sofia.
The main aim of the WELCOME project is to support inclusion in kindergartens, and to offer functional tools for working with children with special needs in education (SNE), whose development is affected by their disability, or disadvantage. We will provide teachers with theoretical background, as well as practical suggestions for the systematic support of children with SNE within group, and individual work. The main outputs of the projects are:
The first two outputs are now in the phase of testing. This newsletter will give you an opportunity to take a look behind the curtains…
An inclusive school is a school that accepts all children and that has prepared all conditions necessary for the fulfillment of their various individual educational needs. The spectrum of these needs may be very broad. Educational needs arise not only from the disability, or disadvantage, but also from the cultural environment in which the child is growing up, from the child’s talent, and the level of mastering of the language of tuition.
Inclusive teaching takes into account the variety of the individual educational needs of the children, and it uses this variety for the mutual enrichment of the children. Thanks to that, it can achieve more easily the goal of inclusive education, which is the support of each child in achieving their educational maximum, while at the same time respecting the child’s individual educational needs. Subordinated to this objective is also the selection of the methods and forms of education. Those methods are used that build on the activity of the children themselves, their mutual cooperation, and the development of the reflection on to what extend the objectives of education have been achieved. At the same time, emphasis is put on the individualization and differentiation of the objectives of education, and of the tools used to achieve them.
The first objective of the Teachers’ Manual is to provide kindergarten teachers with a basic and all-round overview of special need in education of children which the teachers are likely to encounter in their practice. The other objective is to provide teachers with practical information regarding the development and possible support of these children. Therefore, the main part of the manual is its practical part, which is segmented according to the individual areas of the child’s development. Each chapter provides a diagnostic tool to be used to discover the educational needs of the child in the given area, an outline of development possibilities, particular educational activities, examples of good practice and a bibliography of resources.
The Teachers’ Manual will be a guidebook for kindergarten teachers in which they can look for help if they work in a heterogenous classroom with children with special needs in education. The Manual will provide teachers both with theoretical knowledge, as well as with practical information on possibilities of supporting the respective area of the child’s development, and an overview of teaching activities.
The interactive application will mainly provide a large collection of educational activities divided according to the area of the child’s development. The application can be used for working with individual children, with the entire class, or with a small group. The application will allow teachers to monitor the progress of the children during their time in kindergarten. Based on these results, and on what activities have been carried out, further educational activities will be recommended in accordance with the child’s individual needs. In the app, it will be possible to store the child’s results, easily to process pedagogic diagnostics, and print a final evaluation report regarding the overall development of the child. The execution of the app will make it accessible, and motivating for the child. The interactive application can be used not only by institutions of pre-school education, but also by parents of children with SNE.
Even though the activities have been designed mainly for children with SNE, the teacher can involve all children, which will support the integration of children with SNE.
The interactive WELCOME application will also contain the electronic version of the Manual, which will allow for the interconnection of theory and practice. Depending on the diagnosed disadvantage, the teacher will be able to select suitable educational activities in accordance with the needs of every single child.
In the autumn of 2017, all parent kindergartens will carry out the testing of the Teachers’ Manual in the form of group discussions. The functionality and usability of the guidebook will thus be tested by 60 experienced teachers from a number of kindergartens. The main findings and comments collected during testing will then be reflected in the final version of the Manual.
By the end of the year, our partner scientific institutions will have designed the content – activities – for the interactive application, including assessment, and methodological support. This will be followed by an extensive phase of testing the application, and its functions.
All findings will be discussed jointly with our partner organization at our spring meeting, which will be held in May 2018 in Sofia.
The WELCOME project is present through the following channels:
Follow our outputs, support our authors, and give use feedback on how successful we are in achieving our objectives!
We wish you a successful start of the school and academic year 2017/2018!
© 2016 Nakladatelství Dr. Josef Raabe, s.r.o.
