The Goethe-Institut e.V. is German non-profit that promotes German language and culture worldwide. Globally, there are more than 150 Goethe-Institutes and Goethe language learning centres in 98 countries, which makes it the largest organisation for Germany’s foreign cultural and educational policies. The Goethe-Institut Athens forms part of this organisational structure.
Goethe-Institut considers language as a key qualification for education, employment and intercultural understanding. Goethe-Institut Athens offers German teachers a wide range of educational opportunities and together with our local partners, we organise events and seminars for teachers of the German language and conduct seminars in methodology and didactics or topic-specific advanced training which are all available also on-line. The Goethe-Institut will contribute ist long expertise in teacher training and skills development for teachers to this project and thus ensure the high quality of the CRADLE Teacher Training Course.
Goethe-Institut Athens will coordinate this project having previously successfully led the Erasmus+ Schools: Future Labs project that looked to increase the employability of young people by increasing their interest and achievements in STEM and foreign language subjects. THE TEAM
Shumen University is one of the five classical universities in Bulgaria which provides education in the field of humanities, natural sciences, computer technologies, technical sciences, social sciences and education. The university is a successor of the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Shumen founded in 1971. At present it offers more than a hundred bachelor, master and doctoral programmes in various fields of study. The Department for Information, Qualification and Life-Long Learning (DIQLL) in Varna offers various teacher training and language courses (Bulgarian for bilingual speakers, English, German and French) at all levels, as well as ICT courses in compliance with the Lifelong Learning priorities and requirements outlined by the Bologna Process and the Europe 2020 Strategy for Education and Training.
Department for Information, Qualification and Life-Long Learning has direct contact and works with key agents form all levels of the education system in Bulgaria – from teacher-trainees to Ministry experts which makes it possible to directly affect the educational process by introducing modern and innovative teaching ideas, methodologies and techniques. As such, DIQLL can offer the necessary conditions for piloting and implementing the CRADLE methodology in teacher training courses and seminars. THE TEAM
Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship
The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship (FFE) is a private commercial foundation established as an inter-ministerial partnership between four ministries and on the basis of the government’s overall strategy for entrepreneurship education. FFE was established in 2010 as part of the Danish government’s strategy to strengthen entrepreneurship teaching in the Danish education system. It is the key task of FFE to disseminate a broad understanding of entrepreneurship with an emphasis on the qualitative aspect of education in entrepreneurship. FFE moreover seeks to increase the demand and encourage the breakdown of barriers towards entrepreneurship in the education system. FFE thus functions as a knowledge centre within entrepreneurship education and has for the last six years published annual reports on the mapping of entrepreneurship education at all three levels in Denmark as well as annual research-based reports on the impact measurement of entrepreneurship education. FFE brings its expertise in entrepreneurship education and teacher training to the project. THE TEAM
Bantani Education is a non-profit organisation based in Belgium, working collaboratively to drive entrepreneurial and creative learning. By bringing together extensive policy and practical experience, Bantani builds high quality collaborations and initiatives involving policy makers, educators, community and the private sector to embed high quality entrepreneurial learning practice and policy into formal and non-formal learning.
Bantani Education will disseminate knowledge about CRADLE’s research and impact to schools, practitioners, academics, students and social partners for them to develop the concepts further; and create a network of professionals who will continue to benefit from the project tools and content after the project itself is complete. Bantani will also contribute its extensive knowledge and understanding of the EntreComp framework which it played a key role in developing and for which Bantani has written an extensive user guide. THE TEAM
GO! Scholengroep Brussel is one of 28 school groups of the Flemish Community Education (GO!). Its school group consists of 32 kindergartens, 36 primary schools, 17 secondary schools (amongst which 9 VET and 1 dual learning), 2 centres for adult education, a pupil guidance centre, 5 art academies and 2 boarding schools. In total, the school group accounts for about 3.000 teachers and 23.000 learners.
GO! Scholengroep Brussel as an organisation coordinates and supports all of its schools on different levels with its different departments of the general directorate: administration, finance, ICT, and infrastructure . They offer guidance, outline policies and foster cooperation between schools to enable the schools to really focus on their educational task and thus ensure quality education. They also closely cooperate with the GO! central services, that offer in-service teacher training, pedagogic guidance and counselling, as well as with universities and research centres such as VUB (Free University of Brussels) and Erasmushogeschool.
Situated in Brussels, the capital of Europe, GO!’s schools offer quality education in an international urban context to learners, whatever their background, nationality, religion or culture. They strongly defend the Pedagogic Project of GO! (PPGO!) which fosters openness, equity, cooperation, commitment, mutual respect and quality. Indeed, the school population reflects the diversity and multicultural population that can be expected from the European capital. Although they are part of the Flemish Community Education, most of their pupils speak French or another, often non-European, language at home. Their teachers work with a diversity in cultures, nationalities, socio-economic backgrounds, religions and languages. This can be a challenge but Scholengroep Brussel chooses to embrace this richness and fosters it by offering every learner equal chances to quality education. GO! Scholengroep Brussel is one of the schools in which the CRADLE teaching methodology is tested. THE TEAM
Idiotiko Dimotiko Neue Schule A.E.
Neue Schule Athens was founded to cultivate those skills that children will need in the future to stand by themselves in all European environments as well as internationally, whatever form the world may have taken by then. German is the second instruction language, while English is being taught as a foreign language daily, starting at grade A’ (6 years old).
The method of instruction at Neue Schule is based on team collaboration, which means that its pupils do not sit in pairs lined up one behind the other as is usual, but have a more flexible seating arrangement; they sit at tables set in various formations, according to the type of team work required. This method applies in all grades and all subjects. That means that instruction material is varied and custom-made to meet the learning needs and requirements of each pupil. Neue Schule cultivates social responsibility and the taking of initiatives within a framework of democratic procedures, expressed through weekly Class Councils and School Councils, during which pupils learn to discuss, question and find solutions in everyday problems involving fellow pupils and staff. They are particularly interested in the acquisition of skills and emotional development by applying the principles of Creative Classroom (a program developed by Partners for Youth Empowerment), of the Gordon method (Teachers Effective Training) and of the basic principles of Non Violent Communication (Dr. Marshall Rosenberg). Neue Schule helps heir pupils develop their talents and capacities in a pleasant and creative manner and they teach them how to overcome difficulties and weaknesses they may come across. For this reason, each child is considered to be unique, a fact greatly appreciated by the child itself, thereby promoting respect for the different/other in class as well as in the school environment as a whole. The school is very experienced in the implementation of the CLIL method of teaching. It is used in the course of many subjects, and since 2017 it has also put the method of co-teaching (TANDEM) into practice with great success. THE TEAM
International School Uwekind is licensed by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Youth and Science and covers all key stages in education: Kindergarten, Primary School from pre-school class to 4th grade, Middle School, and High School. International School Uwekind provides education in all subject areas and subjects according to the programs of the Bulgarian school curriculum. The School offers higher level learning of two foreign languages – English and German.
International School Uwekind keenly follows trends in the world of education and uses the most modern methods in teaching. It focuses on creativity and on a teaching form that requires the active involvement of pupils. It takes the normal school subjects as its starting point and aims at strengthening the pupil’s self-esteem, communicative skills, ability to understand the surrounding world, and competence to act. It is the mission of Uwekind to create and inspire balanced, responsible global citizens, who are independent thinkers with a passion for learning. They are committed to provide a supportive and enabling learning environment in which all members of the community are challenged to achieve their individual potential.
Uwekind has participated in the Schools: Future Labs predecessor project to CRADLE. This participation gave them an opportunity to develop and test a teaching methodology based on action research through a methodology that is student-led, self-directed and includes project planning and implementation skills: all essential to the development of an entrepreneurial self. THE TEAM
Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA) is a private organisation officially recognised by the state as a provider of education at all levels from pre-school to upper secondary. It has about 400 members of staff, of which 250 are teachers; and 2,000 students. EA puts a substantial emphasis in the teaching of foreign languages. German in particular is taught to students of all ages beginning from Kindergarten onwards as the first foreign language taught at school, whereas English is taught starting from primary education onwards as the second foreign language of the school.
In 1995, the organisation established a Research and Development Department, a dedicated structure within the school which currently employs 15 full time researchers (7 PhD level, 8 MSc). The Department focuses on the design, implementation and support of pedagogical and technological innovation in educational practice, through work internally in the school and through collaborations with numerous educational, research and commercial institutions in Europe and the world. Since its establishment, the Research and Development Department has coordinated and supported the participation of EA, either as coordinator or as partner, in more than 120 national and international collaborative research projects and networks, the majority of which have been concerned with science education and applications of new technologies in education. More particularly, EA is considered a leading pioneer in innovative approaches to science education, through its active involvement in and initiation of relevant national and European projects and initiatives (H2020, eContentPlus, ICT-PSP, SiS in FP7 and FP6, IST in FP5 and ICT in FP6, LLP-ICT, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus+). It has also developed rich activity in the provision of European teacher training and professional development, in the context of various courses (including longer-term courses, such as summer schools) in which hundreds of participants from across Europe have taken part.
Overall, EA has unique experience in educational practice and educational innovation with a dedicated R&D department within the school itself. One particular line of projects EA has undertaken in the last 6 years is concerned with the interplay between science pedagogy and creativity, with a special focus on younger pupils. THE TEAM
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA) is the largest state institution of higher learning in Greece, and among the largest universities in Europe. With a student body of about 108,000 undergraduate and 11.000 postgraduate students, 15.000 PhD Candidates, over 2.000 members of academic staff and approximately 1.300 administrative and secretarial staff and specialized personnel, the University of Athens aims at excellence in both teaching and research in a significantly varied range of disciplines. The Faculties and their respective Departments, functioning within the 8 larger academic units entitled Schools, as well as a number of independent Faculties offer a wide range of courses.
The basic principle of the work carried out by the university staff is that research does not only help the production of new knowledge but links the University to the society and the market. The research and its prospective for development in new areas have highlighted UoA as a modern, robust, academic organization of great status and high reliability in the international scientific community.
The Pedagogical Department of Primary Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens’ broader contribution to education and to society is significant. It has undertaken a lot of initiatives and projects, which aimed at the improvement of the teacher’s status as well as of the quality dimension in education.University of Athens provides an extensive research programme focused on the development and evaluation of teacher training courses, possesses the know-how to evaluate both the student learning outcomes and the outcomes of the project as a whole and contacts with a broad range of organizations active in education, and visibility through conferences and specialized publications. UoA will bring a team of scientists specialized in researching, testing and evaluating new teaching methods to this project to evaluate the proposed methodology and its overall impact. UoA was also apartner in the Schools: Future Labs project. THE TEAM
GO! Unescoschool elementary Koekelberg is a part of GO! Schoolgroup Brussels and our array of pupils reflects the diversity of culture and religion that is typical for Brussels, the capital of Europe. Within our school, we are aware that there is diversity in the development of the pupils as well. An asset which we put priority to. A total of 74 people work for our school. In the whole elementary school, we have 580 pupils (kindergarten included as well). In the Unescoschool, we pay attention to the complete personality development of every child. We provide education for the head, the heart and the hands. We value a decent preparation for secondary education but also work on social skills and make plenty of time for creative activities so the pupils can grow up as responsible and socially persons. That is because we want to provide an education as wide as possible and use the most modern teaching methods to reach these goals. Every child has a right to challenging education fit to them. Some pupils need a little extra help to reach the learning goals. Others can easily handle a little extra. The teachers of Unescoschool make sure every child has the necessary education. They are supported by the intern care-co-ordinators and the care-teachers. Those so trust their child to our school, chooses decent education. The Unescoschool is an elementary school with a long tradition, high level, dedicated personnel and an excellent care-structure. THE TEAM
GO! Basisschool De Iris in Uccle
GO! Basisschool De Iris in Uccle (Brussels) was founded in September 2015. At this moment, we offer all kindergarten classes as well as primary school up until year three. Every year, an extra year class is added so that we will offer a complete primary school trajectory by the school year 2020-2021. Our school team now consists of 10 staff members and 103 pupils. Our pupils come from different communities in Brussels, although most of them live in Uccle or Forest. Although we offer Dutch-speaking education, 85% of our pupils have a different home language than Dutch. 60% speaks French at home and 25% yet another language. Our school is situated in a very green environment. We are currently transforming our domain in view of our vision that the whole school domain is the expansion of the classroom. Our school focus is therefore on nature and sports. Our goal is to organise more classes outdoors and to have pupils actively use the natural school environment as learning material. THE TEAM
On Campus BS Toverfluit you experience the rural feeling at a stone’s throw from the heart of Europe. The Campus is located on the edge of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, next to Scheutpark, a very beautiful and large nature area. The campus has several divisions: a nursery where children can stay from birth until the age of 3, a kindergarten for children from the age of 2.5, a primary school for children from 6 years and an athenaeum for pupils from 12 years to 18. All our divisions are independent but there is a strong “campus feeling” where they all cooperate closely. The campus feeling has a great value for us and for this reason, we ask every teacher, employee, parent, and pupil to pay extra attention to this. The children and pupils who are educated in our divisions are very diverse. We do find ourselves in a metropolitan and multicultural context. This diversity adds a great value as we learn to live together, learning a lot from each other. As a Unesco School we focus on the Unesco values and we also want to pass these on to our pupils: active citizenship, human rights and intercultural dialogue. THE TEAM