Espacios no formales participativos para el aprendizaje escolar inclusivo

IncLeisure is an educational project that aimed to provide all participants with an experience of participation, training, analysis and thinking about inclusive non-formal learning spaces (INFLS) not only as a solution to a problem of social exclusion of the school children's community, but as a way learning values and transversal skills within regulated school education. It is a non-formal education that is received in places of daily life and social relationships such as schoolyards, parks and sports spaces. The subject who receives it is an active part of his education and that of others. Community participation, of all agents (institutional, educational, family, neighborhood) in the definition of these common spaces, and of the activities carried out in them, contributes greatly to generating feelings of belonging to the group, ties and, therefore, inclusion of all participants. The project emphasized the usefulness of implementing adequate playgrounds structure to bring motivational tools for teachers to work learnings with students. Early school leaving is due to a series of factors of diverse nature and is linked to situations of cumulative exclusion that often originate in early childhood, with the most vulnerable groups

In an inclusive non-formal education space, children will benefit from living with different experiences and learning from them and will allow: -Develop in the school children community values such as solidarity, respect, reflection on human behavior and coexistence with diversity and inclusion, citizen participation and a sense of belonging. -Promote the acquisition of transversal competences through non-formal learning in inclusive spaces and through participation and cooperative learning, stimulating the development of a critical spirit, creativity and acquiring habits of dialogue and search for consensus. -Provide flexibility to educational professionals to develop innovative and alternative non-formal education methods to help students learn.

The project developed activities for the exchange of good practices between the partner entities in the form of joint work workshops, training and learning activities, for the transfer of good practices carried out in educational centers, and dissemination activities, promotion and transfer of the results obtained, in the form of practical materials. For the first months, online meetings for coordinating and exchanging inputs for the best practices compilation for outputs. Once intellectual outputs where finished in terms of contents, an LTT was dedicated to transfer knowledge among partners’ staff, to learn how to use the guides, and also served as an assessment tools in terms of detecting spaces for improvement. Each partner then implemented multiplier events and workshops that reached greater number of stakeholders, for the guides to be used in more schools and the rest of local communities.

The material results are four guides that together form a toolkit for teachers and educators to start the process in their organizations towards inclusive non-formal learning spaces, in which curricular activities can be better integrated. The guides include methodologies for integrating the inclusive mindset in the school, to promote the change towards material changes in the playground and other areas of the school yard and facilities, specific orientation for providing supportive staff for inclusive non-formal activities, inspirational examples brought by the best practices identified in each country, and a self-assessment tool for a school to evaluate how they are improving their structure and design towards inclusion in their playgrounds. Also, the results include the identification of further needs to address older ages (teenages, young adults) in terms of inclusive leisure for social learning and inclusion. Sharing the knowledge and experience from the tree different countries, with 3 different legal educational schemes, also helped to identify new approaches, once the best things from the 3 were identified by partnership.