+ Educação Inclusiva

We applied for this project because we felt there was a need in Portuguese classrooms. Despite the fact that legislation is increasingly inclusive and that school is now expected to be for everyone, in practice, in addition to the lack of resources (especially human resources), there is a lack of preparation and awareness about what disabilities are, such as developmental disorders and how we should deal with students. From the lack of preparation of teachers to the lack of understanding and sensitivity of peers, there is a lot of work to be done in awareness raising. Thus we believe that non-formal education can make a contribution to both pupils and teachers. We need to update ourselves on the European guidelines, pass on credible and up-to-date knowledge to professionals, on the one hand, and create resources to sensitise students to this topic in a light and playful way.

We want to: 1. Create a “handbook of best practices” with important information for school staff to take into account in their daily work, in order to promote the social inclusion of students with developmental disorders; 2. Create other resources aimed at students (pedagogical-recreational content on various problems and how to deal with colleagues who have them: videos and card games); 3. Create an online training course aimed at educational communities on social inclusion in the school context. With this specific objectives we intended: A. To fight learning disadvantages, early school dropout and underdeveloped basic skills – students who suffer from exclusion problems at school because of their limitations are more prone to learning problems, early school leaving and vulnerability in socioemotional skills (such as creating healthy social relationships with peers and teachers); B. To support teachers, school leaders and other educational areas – because we believe that change in the school context starts with school staff, we want to empower them, giving them information and tools to work better with children with developmental disorders and inform the whole the school on the subject.

The work plan comprised 4 main activities: 1. Development and online publication of "Animated Videos" (in Portuguese, English and Spanish). 2. Development and online publication of "Deck of Cards" (in the 3 languages) 3. Development and online publication of a Manual of Good Practices (in the 3 languages) 4. Development and online publication of a Training Course for School Staff (in English). In order to realise these 3 activities, many others were carried out, namely: - Conducting online focus groups with various stakeholders . - Participation in congresses in this area (e.g. Luso-Brazilian Congress on Inclusive Education. - Participation in some specific training actions: (ex:Diversity and Inclusive education",Coursera) - Literature review to develop content for publications on the project's media channels. - Mapping of European and national organisations working on disability and school inclusion issues. - Contact with renowned entities and personalities in the field of inclusion for their participation in the project. - Participation in working meetings with the partners and as the supplier responsible for producing the videos. - Organisation and participation in the 3 TPM (two in Portugal and one in Spain).

We successfully launched 15 videos (5 in each language), videos with impact, tested in formal and non-formal contexts. One of the videos is composed of the testimonies of different stakeholders which allows to have an impact both in school context and in civil society as it highlights that there is no single path to inclusion. The remaining outputs are the main results of this project: an updated and 100% online course, available at a click of a button, and a good practice manual that aims to: 1 Understand Inclusive Education as a process of constant change and improvement. 2 To support teachers, school leaders and other educational agents in the practice of inclusive education. 3 Empower educational agents to adopt good Inclusive Education practices in school contexts. The game created and made available in 3 languages, allows the theme to be addressed in any educational context, whether formal or informal, anywhere in the world. There are of course results that are not yet tangible due to the fact that the project was very short in time for the objective and mission it had. A time that seemed short for the amount of intellectual property produced.