The theme of the 1st Transnational Meeting in Covilhã, Portugal, was Diversity & inclusion and mainly focused on inclusion, as a means of promoting equality and non-discrimination.
An important part of the meeting was devoted to sharing engaging practices, with the contribution of local stakeholders and the teachers from the hosting school. The special education team of the Portuguese school and the children prepared presentations and hand-on activities with new learning and teaching methods and approaches to work with special needs students in an integrated and inclusive school. The prevention of early school leaving and failure was also an aimed topic, with the presentation of local projects that aim for the engagement of less motivated students.
One of the workshops had to do with social and economic obstacles and the presentation of a project that the school implements along with one of the school associate partners, to assist families and children of Migrant background.
The transnational team was organised into several teams, starting to work on the Project result No 1, by creating the questionnaire to collect the engaging practices. Another group started working on indicators and a 3rd group started preparing the communication plan. Work was conducted in plenary assembly, small groups and workshops.
Other sessions were devoted to the use of ICT in classes, as a means to engage children with difficulties and children with more challenging cultural backgrounds, traditionally more prone to school dropout.
