Evidence Informed Practice for School Inclusion

In 2017 the Catalan Government introduced the Decret 150/2017 educational act designed to address students’ diversity and ensure an Inclusive school system. The act drew attention to the need to implement efficient strategies to promote educational inclusion and equity and to improve the students’ outcomes; in particular to close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students’ outcomes, especially in areas with high levels of diversity.
Our project “Evidence Informed practices for school inclusion” (EIPSI) aims to design, prototype and test innovative solutions for teachers and stakeholders (such as educational counsellors, inspectors, public administrators, delegates) to improve students’ equity and inclusion through the use of evidence-informed practices. EIPSI responds to the “Social Inclusion” priority area and School education priorities: “Tackling early school leaving and disadvantage” and “Strengthening the profile of the teaching professions”.
Addressing school inclusion requires of a holistic and interdisciplinary approach, and our consortium is formed by professionals from different area of knowledge and expertise: research, teaching, policymaking, teacher training, coaching, school development, school inspection, psycho/pedagogical and educational counselling from five different countries and three types of institution: higher education, public administration and professional association.
To address these priorities, the project proposes a holistic approach, including a 360º Intervention Plan addressing three pillars: (1) teachers’ capacity building; 2) school development; 3) networks with stakeholders and increasing awareness.
Derived from these three areas of intervention, the project will produce tangible results in five domains by producing five intellectual outputs, including: 1) Systematic datasets of criteria and indicators for teachers, school leaders and policymakers on evidence and research-informed practices for school inclusion; 2) A database with resources (effective, innovative teaching practices) for diverse classrooms and a digital prototype to engage teachers with quality and validated evidence and to facilitate the creation of multidisciplinary partnerships and networks, as well as an interactive workspace for school cooperation and information packs;

Call 2020 Round 1 KA2 - Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for school education Form ID: KA201-26589D73 Deadline (Brussels Time) 2020-04-23 12:00:00
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3) Training materials for teachers, school leaders and educational counsellors /tutors and education policymakers to tackle school diversity through EIPA; 4) School development plan including intervention guidelines, materials and structures; 5) European guidelines for policymakers and community stakeholders on how to foster networks and awareness level of evidence-informed decisions in the field of school inclusion and equity.
Our target group are high complexity schools, those schools with high numbers of immigrant pupils, special needs children, children with high levels of school mobility and those from poor social- economic family background.
The project involves a methodological strategy to maximise collaboration and co-design to reduce the transfer gap, such as a system of co-leading and mixing teams formed by research and schools’ teachers, inspectors and councillors. The project will directly involve a pilot sample of 10 high complexity schools in each partner country. In each school an “Impulse groups” will be formed including teachers and leaders responsible with the implementation of EIPI strategies at school level and to develop organisational conditions for its sustainable implementation.
The methodology is innovative since: (1) The development of the platform will utilise Human Centred Design, Design Thinking and Scrum processes; (2) The development of the capacity building programmes will effectively employ the Research Learning Network (RLN) approach. (3) The school development area will use the potentialities of Coaching procedures; (4) The networking and awareness will benefit from the collaboration between researchers and stakeholders networks to co-create transferable guidelines for EIPA implementation.
The project includes a comprehensive dissemination plan by which all these outputs will be open access and available to the general public in the project's website and prototyped platformed, in all the languages of the partners' countries and adapted for special needs users. In addition, some outputs will be included in the School Gateway portal or eTwinning as useful resources for schools and local policymakers.
All the countries participating in this project are facing important challenges regarding educational inclusion (migrant and refugee population, socio-economic status, ethnical aspects or special needs). As such, the transnational character of the project will provide extremely useful knowledge for all countries involved.