Description
The project aims to increase school success of primary school Roma children through individual or group tutoring mostly in their home environment in 9 towns: Sokolov, Kladno, Ústí nad Labem, Praha, Chomutov, Liberec, Bílina, Plzeň, Olomouc. These children will receive long term support. The school absence will be reduced and better self-esteem of these children will be developed. Educational after school activities will also give the children opportunity to spend their free time in active way and for broadening their horizons. Norwegian methodology - "Grunnlaget" will be implemented in group tutoring. The project should also provide assistance and support for parents of involved children for who it is often difficult to support their children and for the teachers who often lack understanding of the children's specific needs and have trouble communicating with families.110 children will be tutored, 80 volunteers and 40 teachers will get involved. There will be 27 leisure activities.
Summary of project results
The objective of the project was to support Roma pupils in primary schools and to improve their educational achievements. It concerned a group of children that is most at risk of educational failure over the long term and most often drops out of mainstream schooling. We concentrated on improving their concrete knowledge of school curricula in which the children encountered particular difficulties, but we also worked on motivation, self-appraisal and widening their horizons. Support was given to 63 more children than we originally envisaged (140 children via individual tutoring, 33 children via group tutoring). The tutored children underwent 31 extracurricular educational activities (compared to 27 that were planned for), 8 participative meetings with parents and we established 59 collaborating triads of family – school – volunteer/coordinator, which helped make the families´ cooperation with schools more effective and anchored the changes in the children´s educational process.The project involved 97 volunteer tutors. We applied the Norwegian method Grunllaget and shared and utilized the experience of our partner – the Norwegian educational society Pedverket – in order to introduce it in group tutoring at primary schools. After the completion of the project the children continue to receive services and we actively work with the project´s outputs. We consider the deepening of collaboration with schools and the utilization of the Norwegian method Grunllaget to be innovative. In the course of fulfilling our main objective we managed to involve more children, families, volunteers and teachers than had originally been anticipated in all of the planned areas. The project helped us stabilize and maintain services during a challenging period, improve and deepen our comprehensive impact and enabled us to try new methods. The experience was of fundamental significance for the development of our service and for the support of children at risk.
Summary of bilateral results
We cooperated with the partner on the methodology. The partner is highly appreciated mainly because they are authors of the method and also because they had been training our lecturers and teachers since the beginning. When trying to transfer the method from our pre-school clubs into the group tutoring we needed support and methodological supervision. We hadn´t had long–term practise of the method and experience with children at basic schools. Therefore we drew from the partner´s experience and know-how directly and also by means of supervision and consultation with the lecturer – Karolína Ranglova, who have been trained by our partner. The sharing took place regularly within Facebook group – Grunnlaget ČR. We wouldn´t be able to transfer the method without the cooperation. Children at risk with special needs in education, who attend the group tutoring, are very specific and heterogeneous group. During the cooperation many questions on the methodology emerged.