HOPE4schools-Health, openness and prosperity education for schools

Our analysis shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of schools in 20 countries and preschools in 19 European countries, impacting 49.8 million children. This disruption highlighted the importance of schools beyond academics, emphasizing social and emotional learning and support. To address these challenges, the Hope4school project outcomes was prepared to support school staff and leaders, leveraging digital technologies for education quality improvement. OECD underscores the need for future-oriented online infrastructure and capacity building for teachers and students The application was developed after analyzing the situation in the partner countries and at the European level. It was considered that there is a need to create tools and outcomes to increase knowledge and awareness regarding well-being and mental health and increase teachers' digital competence level. Pupils raised the level of confidence of teachers and pupils in the use of new technologies to support their well-being. The needs addressed by partnership were the following -lack of updated activities on wellbeing for teachers and their students -limited opportunities for teachers to benefit from European activities --lack of visual materials

The HOPE4school project aimed to develop new learning materials while addressing key questions regarding online schooling's support for pupils, staff, and families amidst COVID-19. Strategies included providing relevant health and well-being information through training, workshops, and digital tools, enhancing communication about COVID-19 and mental health, fostering new competencies like mental health understanding and stress management, adopting engaging teaching methods, embedding well-being in school strategies, promoting a positive classroom climate, and sharing best practices. The project sought to establish a well-being methodology, create an online resource repository, and compile best practices for school staff and specialists, ultimately fostering well-being among all stakeholders in the education community. Additionally, efforts were made to establish a classroom environment conducive to learning and discipline, with a focus on well-being principles. The project also emphasized the application of new online methods and digital activities in the classroom, utilizing an online resource repository and sharing best practices to enhance support for all stakeholders in the education community.

At final stage stage the Hope 4 Schools project activities that have been envisaged in the application form was implemented on time and within the approved budget. During the two years of the project implementation the partnership were the developed: Result 1 “Methodology for teachers to introduce well-being in schools (implementation guide)”. In the initial stages, Know&Can - the leading partner of the firs result, provided the necessary guidelines and supporting documents for the organization of national desk researches and consultation groups aiming to provide the partners with more insight on the topic of well-being in each partner country. The consultation groups included 82 participants at partnership level. Based on the results of the research, the partners jointly worked on the development of the Methodology, which includes 7 chapters: Introduction; A whole-school approach to well-being; Supporting the well-being of teachers and school staff; Well-being of children and their families; Assessment of well-being level and needs of school staff; How to support well-being in school?; Good practices and successful examples on well-being. The Methodology is available in all partners’ languages and English. In order to ensure that the document is reflecting the needs of the teachers and school staff, the partners also organized piloting sessions of the Methodology among educational staff at national level, the results from which were compiled into reports and served as inspiration for the partners in further improving the project products. Each project partner conducted preliminary research. In Romania CPIP conducted the preliminary research while LTWS carried out the consultations with school staff. The A2.2 was successfully implemented by all project partners with 82 participants: Romania – 2 groups with 12 participants; Portugal – 1 online session with 10 participants; Serbia – 2 groups with 10 teachers; Greece – 4 groups with 26 participants; Czech Republic – 2 groups with 12 participants and Bulgaria – 1 group with 12 participants. A national report (A2.3) was prepared at national level by each project partner including main findings, outcomes, and recommendations. Know&Can analyzed the national reports and prepared A2.4: a common European report. It was used as a basis for developing A3.1: draft structure of the methodology. The partnership provided feedback on the draft structure and then once finalized the consortium worked on A3.2: Content development where each partner was responsible for 1-2 chapters of Methodology. 7 chapters were integrated into the final Methodology. Each project partner developed one specific chapter and conducted an internal review on the final version. A4 testing phase was carried out in all participating countries. AEJE PT prepared the testing phase guidelines and reporting Template. All project partners organized the national testing phase with min. 10 school participants and issued a national report. AEJE analyzed the results and prepared the common European testing phase report. The final steps were about translation and website integration of the methodology. All partners translated the final version and strongly disseminated it among schools and other educational institutions. R2: Online repository resources on wellbeing and interactive digital tools We have developed the second project Result, the online repository with material about well-being in our schools. The Regional Directorate of Education, in charge of the PR2, created a questionnaire to identify the topics of the repository. We have been working closely with the partners on the topics of the repository. Based on the results of the questionnaire the repository will consist of the following topics: physical health, mental health, school practices and facilities/school environment. We have also created the supporting documents for managing and monitoring the work and the digital content each partner will be responsible for, so that each partner's contribution is clearly stated and any overlapping is avoided. Each partner caried out the maping and developing the corresponding content. Innovation derived here from lessons learned during the pandemic which highlighted the need to strengthen the resilience of teachers, students and even parents to adapt to unexpected situations. The result aimed to generate these changes in three ways: raising school and student personal awareness of well-being and mental health; better equipping school staff and students with digital tools; and improving teachers' working capacities and students' autonomy by developing independent learning and self-monitoring skills. It served as a repository of open educational resources tailored for school staff (including teachers, counselors, and school leaders), students, as well as parents or other specialists. The repository included various resources such as articles, videos, interviews, handouts, tip sheets, and quizzes covering topics such as stress management, mindfulness, mediation techniques, as well as tips for online communication. Additionally, it provided information on digital pedagogical tools like Kahoot, Canvas, Jamboard, Prezi, and more. RDEWM created A1: questionnaire in which the school staff were asked to give their feedback about the way in which they would like to be the online repository and to propose a series of topics that they would like to be addressed in the digital library. Each project partner contributed to the development of the questionnaire and involved at least 10 school staff during the questionnaire completion. In Romania, the activity was conducted by CPIP and LTWS. A common European summary was prepared including the key responses and suggestions. RDEWM analyzed the main findings and created the structure, format, and design for A2: the online repository of resources. The partnership provided feedback on the Excel prepared and agreed on the final version. The online repository included a collection of resources, tools, methods, and techniques on well-being, mental health tool both in English and national languages. Each partner was responsible for collecting 10 resources for the online repository: 5 resources were developed in English in a downloadable and translatable version, and 5 resources were collected in national language from the existing online resources at national level. A corpus of 70 resources were integrated within the online repository. The partnership agreed to translate 35 resources in national language as pdf files and kept 35 resources in national languages to meet the requirements of R2. For each of the 70 resources the project partners created different links in Canva and integrated an attractive description of all resources. Each project partner developed 10 different Canva links and prepared the information for its 10 resources in English. This approach was additional to the promised steps but extremely necessary to provide information about the 35 resources in the national language. AEJE prepared the A3 and A4 guidelines for conducting the national testing phase which followed two directions: one with school staff and the other with pupils from primary and secondary schools. Evaluation questionnaires and reporting templates were also developed by AEJE with support from CPIP and LTWS. The first testing phase was organized in each partner country as a one-day workshop and involved at least 10 school staff/country. CPIP and LTWS collaborated on this testing phase. The second testing phase focused on testing the online repository resources with the final users, meaning pupils in primary and secondary schools. The teachers involved in the first testing phase conducted the second testing phase with min 50 children. Analyzing the A5 common European testing report prepared by AEJE, 304 pupils were involved in RO, 160 pupils in PT, 50 pupils in BG, 70 pupils in CZ, 64 pupils in GR and 60% of the pupils in SRB. A6, A7, and A8 were about translation, website integration and internal assessment and validation and all project partners contributed to these. R3: Best practices and learning from real-life situation This outcome involved gathering numerous exemplary approaches from an international standpoint, and focused on how schools navigated the challenges posed by the pandemic. It highlighted the transition from traditional classroom learning to online education, as well as the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 situation such as burnout and stress. The innovation of this result came from best practices in schools and educational community and the ability to identify, adapt and implement effective methods and strategies to improve the educational process and student results. This outcome aimed to investigate the experiences of individuals directly engaged in implementing student well-being programs in schools, comprehend the challenges and opportunities encountered by school leaders when implementing a comprehensive approach to student well-being, and examine how school staff handled online learning. CPIP guided the whole process of development and implementation as R3 leader. CPIP developed guidelines and instructions for A1: methodology for the collection of best practices. Comprehensive Framework and Templates were developed by CPIP and agreed by all project partners. The Template for collecting the BPs was created by CPIP and used by the partnership in A2. A total of 14 best practices were collected at the partnership level. Each project partner collected 2 best practices on the proposed themes, following the guidelines from the methodology. In RO both CPIP and LTWS collected 2 different BPS having 4 BPs from RO. The main aim of BPs was to understand challenges and opportunities that school leaders faced in implementing a whole school approach to student wellbeing and explore how school staff managed online learning. CPIP analyzed the BPs collection and prepared the summary European document. The partnership provided feedback and translated it into the national language as part of A4. CPIP developed the A3 structure, interview questions and guidelines for conducting national interviews with school leaders/counselors on wellbeing and mental health. There was a need for the interviews to be registered as a video or prepared as an article. To meet this CPIP developed the Canva template for the article interview, created the Hope4Schools YouTube channel and proposed an efficient distribution of the interviews. It was agreed that each project partner will prepare 1 video English interview with subtitles up to 3 min and 1 interview in national language as an article with max 5 lines of summary in English. CPIP designed a common intro and outro for the video interviews to promote the E+ programme and visual identity of the project. Each project partner developed 1 video English interview and 1 article interview in national language. The subtitles for the video interviews were translated in all partner languages while the national article interviews were created in Canva and included a short English summary of the main ideas. In RO LTWS prepared the video interview and the article interview considering their access to the target groups and previous involvement in testing phases. A5 focused on quality assessment of the BPS and interviews and was implemented by AEJE. 50+ teachers PT, RO, CZ, GR, SRB, and BG answered the questionnaire and supported the partnership in making available the final version of BPs and interviews. We have the Project's visual identity with logo, website, and promotional materials that respect the E+ guide regarding the visual identity. Intense activities were made to engage with the stakeholders and bring end-users into the output development. Constant communication, monitoring, and archiving activities are made through the Teamwork platform, a dedicated project management tool for the Hope 4 Schools Project. Four project meetings were organized.The first took place in February in Timișoara. The general work framework in the project was established, details about the platform on which we will work, the methods of evaluation, dissemination, the responsibilities of each partner. Updated the details of the project according to the indications received from the experts. The second took place in Sofia in September. Here the details of Result 1 were harmonized and the stages and details of work on Result 2 were set out. The third project meeting in Greece and the fourth in Portugal. A Learning, teaching and training activities held in Prague, CZ between 10 and 12 of October 2022. The hosting school ZŠOrangery prepared the practical learning, teaching and training activities, together with real life observation, how it works in school of ZŠ Orangery.The participants shared ideas, experienced many powerful techniques in practice and developed a number of new skills they can share with relevant stakeholders in their country. During the activity, the partner introduced different tools, assessments, and a survey sample on how to measure the state of well-being and further develop an effective strategy, based on the findings.

The first result of the project is a Methodology developed in 7 chapters describing effective strategies for integrating well-being at school, both for teachers and students. Several attractive chapters full of relevant information support the Methodology for facilitating well-being and are dedicated also to families involved in the educational system. When and where can the Well-being Integration Methodology be used? It can be used as 'support material' when teachers want to facilitate a whole class approach to wellbeing using tips and recommendations from project partners developed on the basis of the latest trends in education. The second outcome of the project is defined by a package of national and European resources available online. More than 70 educational, interactive and social resources have been developed as part of the online set of practical and informative materials. These resources contribute to increasing the capacity of teachers and students to work autonomously by developing independent learning and self-monitoring skills. Where can the Online Set of Practical and Informative Resources be accessed? It can be accessed directly on the project website, where at least 35 resources are available in each partner’s national language. https://hope4schools.eu/wellbeing-repository/ The third outcome of the project is its ''voice'' being strongly influenced by teachers' experiences of stress in the school system, the phenomenon of burnout, and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. - A series of 14 Good Practice examples are available at European level as part of the joint effort of the project partners. - 6 videos will be accessible for free, directly from the project's YouTube channel, where several recommendations and tips in the area of stress and well-being are shared by teachers and other key actors working in the education system. - 6 written interviews will also be available on the project website thanks to this latest result. The written and video interviews will be promoted as a source of inspiration for all those who want to benefit from actions and initiatives already validated in different European countries. The HOPE4school project aimed to generate visible and compelling outcomes beneficial to school staff, pupils, and the broader community, including parents and school inspectors. Anticipating practical and feasible results tailored to the specific needs of schools and communities, our objectives encompassed the following deliverables: 1. A compilation of 14 best practices accompanied by a summary report highlighting diverse country experiences in promoting school well-being, emphasizing similarities and differences in online education approaches crucial for learning and innovation. 2. 14 interviews conducted with specialists addressing various themes related to well-being and mental health, offering valuable insights and expertise. 3. Development of a methodology available in all partner languages designed to assist school staff, including teachers, leaders, and counselors, in implementing effective well-being strategies within educational settings. 4. Preparation of two comprehensive testing reports by the lead partner, documenting findings from testing phases for the first and second project outcomes. 5. Creation of an online repository of resources accessible to school staff, pupils, and parents, offering a wealth of materials ranging from mindfulness techniques and stress management strategies to engaging classroom activities and tools to support parents navigating the challenges of the pandemic and online learning. 6. Compilation of reports from 12 multiplier events and one staff training event, documenting insights and outcomes. 7. Development of a dedicated website for the HOPE4school project, serving as a central hub for information and resources. 8. Distribution of four newsletters in English and partner languages throughout the project duration, providing updates and insights. 9. Issuance of six press releases in English and partner languages to disseminate project achievements and milestones. 10. Submission of four financial and narrative reports upon project completion, detailing project expenditures and outcomes. 11. Compilation of four dissemination reports and one final dissemination report summarizing project dissemination activities and impact. 12. Production of three quality reports by the quality leader, assessing participant satisfaction with project outcomes and activities at interim and final stages.