"<< Objectives >>By implementing this project regarding inclusive education in our schools where there are students of mixed abilities with diverse needs coming from different family environments, we want to increase the level of education of children in responding positively to the challenge of diversity and promoting a tolerant attitude and acceptance. We want to achieve involvement of school communities in activities for European values: citizenship, freedom, tolerance of non-discrimination, interculturality.<< Implementation >>We are going to implement 4 Short term joint staff trainning events –LTT in Greece ""Democracy in classroom"", Spain ""Volunteering makes you happy"", Romania ""Music unites us"" and Czech Republic ""Inclusion of children with special needs in the mainstream ECEC education"", celebrations of International days per month, e.g. International day of Friendship, International Day for Tolerance, every month's activities for respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures.<< Results >>Knowledge, skills, attitudes practices discovered and implemented together with our partners, will be permanent working models for children who need more attention from us, to overcome all cultural, social, linguistic, religious, ethnic barriers, etc.New methodologies regarding the inclusion and smooth integration of all students. New arrangements and policy through the development of a European dimension in education. We also expect increasing the quality of early childhood care and education."

The reason for the preparation and submission of project Kikus with us was that the teachers of preschool education has often presented the need suitable and appropriate language learning program of Czech/Slovak as a second language for children who are not native speakers of Czech or Slovak. Existing teaching materials and aids for language support were highly insufficient in Czech and Slovak Kindergartens.For this purpose has been transferred and adapted method KIKUS. It is a method that aims to encourage and promote the language skills of children who are not native speakers of Czech/Slovak, in their native language and in so called their second language. The using of the KIKUS Method encourages and supports the children’s ability to communicate and function in more than one language from an early age. The organization META cooperated with the author of the method, Edgardis Garlin, for several years before the project preparation, but only at the level seminars and methodological.Thanks to the project, we were able to expand cooperation and provide Czech and Slovak teachers of kindergarten with a proven and successful method of language learning for children in preschool age.The project had 4 partners: German organization Zentrum für kindliche Mehrsprachigkeit (ZKM, who’s the author of KIKUS method director), SNGO Marginal from Bratislava and two kindergartens: Kindergarten MŠ Sluníčko from Prague and kindergarten MŠ Timravina from Bratislava.Project’s partners worked together to adapt the methodology KIKUS and trained in the use of this method in practice. There were two five-day seminars in Munich and 3 project meetings (two in Prague and one in Bratislava). The collaboration of all partners’ organizations was very helpful for all involved: in addition to teaching materials, they exchanged their experience and discussed about how deal with problematic situations in the education and integration of children who are not native speakers of Czech or Slovak. Methodical support of the ZKM they received not only during five-day seminars, but also during project meetings and e-mail communication over the translation and adaptation of the methodology into Czech, respectively Slovak. At the final project meeting further collaboration was discussed and decided.Significant support was the project especially for Slovak partners because the education of children and pupils who are not native speakers of Slovak is much less developed and supported than in the Czech Republic. Methodology and teaching produced in the project were the first of this kind and for this target group in Slovakia.Project outputs published on the platform for the dissemination of the results and outcomes of Erasmus + programme:• Methodology KIKUS in Czech,• Methodology KIKUS in Slovak• Worksheets KIKUS translated into Czech and Slovak (in one document)• Picture cards and cards KIKUS translated into Czech and Slovak (in one document).In addition to these physical outputs we can say that the project achieved its objective in relation to the professional development of all participants. Through education, methodological support and sharing experiences increased their competences and expertise in the integration of children who are not native speakers of Czech or Slovak. At the final project meeting we assembled a working group to create a new seminar with KIKUS elements for other kindergarten teachers. In this way, teachers involved in the project will disseminate their knowledge and experience and thus the projects outputs and results.

Participation in ECEC is considered a crucial factor for socialising children into formal education, and according to the final report “ECEC for children from disadvantaged backgrounds”, commissioned by the European Commission in 2012, ECEC benefits especially the most disadvantaged children, whose gains in cognitive and socio-emotional development are higher than for ‘average’ children. However, according to the report “Support for children with special educational needs”, from the DG for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion, these children tend to be less represented in ECEC, due to the lack of adapted environment. In the partner countries, only Slovenia, which acted as a “mentor partner”, has had an adapted provision of education for many years, including additional assistance for inclusive education, and the majority of children with special needs attends mainstream kindergartens and schools. This translates into the Early School Leaving (ESL) rate, which is only of 5%. In Czech Republic, the situation has very recently changed (2017), as a new legislation was passed, according to which the mainstream education should always be the first choice for children with special education needs, and they are legally entitled to receive support. In Spain, the education system is decentralised and regions were asked to develop “Attention to Diversity plans”. However, in the Canary Islands, no specific funding has been allocated to early attention to children with ASD, contrary to other regions such as the Basque Country, the Valencian Community or the Community of Madrid in which an average of 472€ per child is invested for additional support to inclusive education. This policy also translates into the ESL rate, which is of 19% in the Canary Islands, and 8% in the Basque country for example. In the Czech Republic, children with ASD are taken into account but they are usually segregated in separate classes. For both these countries, the ESL rate for disabled people is of 28%, while it is only of 5% for students without any disability. Taking all this into account, the specific objectives of the project were the followings: - Allow preschool teachers to have the necessary knowledge and competences to be able to include children with ASD in the activities of the classroom; - Reduce disparities in learning outcomes between children with and without ASD. The activities were the followings: - Using the partners’ knowledge and experience about inclusive education and ASD to create a report based on observations in schools, and from there create tailored experience-based teacher’s training; - Piloting and testing these outputs in 7 pre-schools. The project particularly resulted in: - The involvement of 27 pre-school teachers in the project’s activities; - 13 EU organisations (partner organisations & associated partners) becoming experts in the inclusion of children with ASD; - An experience-based teachers’ training, available for any interested stakeholder at EU and international level; - 4 multiplier events to disseminate the project’s results and raise awareness on the need for a more inclusive education for children with ASD; - 4 newsletters to inform stakeholders on the progress and results of the project; - 1 impact report comparing the situation of the children in the classroom, before and after the project, and some guidelines on how to use the online training. - 17 press articles or radio/TV interviews or reports. - 1 project website gathering all the information about the project, its results available for download, and its implementation, including contact details of each partner; - 2 signed declarations of local authorities willing to support the further exploitation of project’s results in the future; - Raised awareness to authorities about the need for inclusion of children with ASD in ECEC. At EU level, this project increased the quality of education Europe by making available two highly innovative intellectual outputs to encourage the take-up of initiatives to improve the inclusion of children with ASD.

The UPSscale project aims to create an innovative, non-hierarchical space for sustainable, collaborative transnational working that responds to the needs and interests of educators and staff in early years settings, schools and universities.There is wide recognition that most EU countries face a shortage of teachers, prompted by an ageing teacher population, fewer students enrolling in initial teacher education courses and more teachers leaving the profession before they reach retirement age. A centrally important part of attracting and retaining teachers is early career support for novice teachers and continuing professional development for staff who are more experienced. A career that remains attractive through opportunities to learn and progress contributes to greater job satisfaction and wellbeing, and is likely to promote higher levels of staff retention.The project will be undertaken by five national partnerships of an HEI and a school/early years setting from Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, England and Spain. Twenty staff will be closely involved from these institutions; they will involve other staff in project activities and disseminate learning through their institutions. Over 1,000 non-partner educators and learners will be engaged with different project activities from HEIs, schools, early years settings and local communities.The project will adopt a four-phase methodology of Discover, Design, Deliver and Disseminate. The objectives will be to develop structures, activities and resources that promote an attractive, sustainable and fulfilling environment for educators and learners by:•Creating principles for collaborative transnational working that draw on best practices from the national contexts (Discover).•Undertaking case studies in each country of educator career paths that are facilitated by collaboration with local communities, or between HEIs, schools and early years settings. These will illustrate the power of collaborative working (Discover).•Planning and co-creating transnational partnership projects (TPPs) in which project partners work together on topics of educational interest, focused on an aspect of sustainability and that have inclusion as a central theme (Design and Deliver). •Setting up a website that has a section in each of the five languages; training partners in cutting edge ICT and multimedia technologies (Design and Disseminate).•Preparing and disseminating project findings and recommendations via a compendium of the TPPs, e-portfolios, webinars and an e-book, using state-of-the-art technology and careful presentation to maximise their usefulness, accessibility and reach (Disseminate). These project activities will develop creative teaching and assessment methods that are responsive to educator and learner interests and needs, and that carefully consider staff and learner wellbeing. Using Learning Design methodology and cutting edge technology for the dissemination of materials will ensure that they have longevity in a fast-moving digital environment.Project learning and resources will be uploaded onto the website, which will be used as a platform from which to share the e-portfolios, compendium of TPPs, webinars and e-book in five different languages with local, national and European educators and academics. Project findings will also be widely disseminated via social media, local dissemination events, practitioner and academic journals, and presentations at regional, national and international conferences.UPSscale’s target groups are student teachers, teachers, school leaders, early years staff and university staff involved with initial teacher education and professional development. All will benefit from responsive cross-national professional development activities that develop and support enjoyable, sustainable and inclusive teaching approaches in their institutions and more widely. Learners in the settings will benefit from the innovative teaching that arises from this work.The expected impact will extend over the four phases of the project. In phase I: Discover and II: Design, the impact will be on project partners’ skills and knowledge; in phase III: Deliver, the impact will extend to teacher and learners in project schools and other schools recruited to participate in the TPPs. In phase IV: Disseminate, the project findings and resources will reach the broader national and international educational community of educators, HEI students and staff involved in Initial Teacher Education, and training organisations looking for material to support collaborative approaches to professional development. Longer-term dissemination will continue beyond the funded lifetime of the project by project partners by, for example, approaching publishers and European journals of educational research about special issues or standalone publications to set project findings in a broader context.