URGENT HELP – SERBIA FLOODS 2014

http://www.udruzeni.org/urgent-help-serbia-floods-2014/

EVIDENCE INFORMED POLICY AND PRACTICE IN EDUCATION IN EUROPE (EIPPEE) NETWORK THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN OSLO, NORWAY, 14-15 MAY 2014.

The Conference will be held in collaboration with the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Education.

The main aims of the conference are to explore the challenges and potential for developing effective infrastructures to support an evidence-informed approach in education across Europe, and to set out a realistic plan of action for the EIPPEE Network. There will be a focus on learning from case examples and existing research.

Key questions to be addressed during the conference include:

• What infrastructures (physical or organisational structures, processes, regulations, etc) are in place across Europe to help facilitate better use of research in education, and at     which level – local, regional, national or European - do these occur?
• What are the most important gaps in institutional capacity and infrastructure, and how might these be addressed?
• What examples of effective/promising structures to support the application of research are available from other sectors, and how appropriate are these for education in Europe?
• What is the potential for, and advantages of, transnational and/or cross-sector cooperation and collaboration via the EIPPEE Network to address issues of research use?

The conference is aimed at researchers, policymakers, analysts, teachers, teacher associations, administrators, managers, trade union leaders, students, and others with an interest in discussing present opportunities and challenges, and mapping the road ahead. All are welcome.

Further information about the event can be found on the EIPPEE Network website http://www.eippee.eu/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=3429

You can download the brochure here.

THE MISSING LINK

CIP-Center for Interactive Pedagogy created the Manual ''THE MISSING LINK: Mechanisms for Supporting Children with Difficulties in Their Transition to the Next Levels of Mandatory Education in the “Mainstream Education System'' 

The publication and the CD accompanying it provide an overview of the experience gained during the implementation of the project entitled The Missing Link – Design of Mechanisms to Support Children with Difficulties in Their Transition to the Next Levels of Mandatory Education in the “Mainstream Education System”. 

The project was created and implemented by the CIP - Center for Interactive Pedagogy thanks to the support of the Early Development Programme of the Open Society Foundations, London. Project was supported by the Ministry of education.

The project included the design of a model for providing comprehensive, systematic, planned and individualised support to children with difficulties starting school or fifth grade and for monitoring the extension of support and evaluating the achieved results. The model, which is fully in accordance with the Serbian primary and secondary legislation, clarifies the steps of the procedures and describes the involvement of various stakeholders. 

The publication targets all those involved in education, because they possess the greatest expertise and are responsible for designing policies and implementing them in practice. We believe that this publication will provide useful advice for parents of children with difficulties on how to support, in cooperation with experts, their children in their transition to higher levels of education as painlessly as possible and pursue their schooling continuously and successfully. We hope that the other parents will also read this publication and that it will provide them with a better understanding of the challenges their children’s peers face and, hopefully, prompt them to actively support the education of children with difficulties and their parents.  Health and welfare professionals may also find this publication useful given that most children with difficulties are in need of support extended by health and welfare institutions as well. The publication also targets professionals and activists engaged in professional and parental associations and associations of persons with disabilities – all those contributing to the welfare of children with their knowledge and activism. 

Situation Analysis – Research of the Practices: The research focused on the support extended to children with difficulties starting first or fifth grade, covered 17 PIs and 16 PS, the parents of 28 children with difficulties and seven experts, an analysis of the literature on transition and recommended forms of support to children in that period. The findings provided insight in the inclusion of children with developmental difficulties and/or disabilities in the preschool institutions and primary schools. The researchers collected examples of transitions of children with difficulties qualified as successful by their parents and the experts and used them as the basis for defining the criteria of successful transitions and the structure and content of transition plans. 

The project involved the design of a model of comprehensive, systematic, planned and individualised support to children with difficulties starting first or fifth grade. The staff of the following three preschool institutions and 11 primary schools took part in the design and piloting of the model of support to the children’s transition.

The model includes: 

• Procedures for collecting information and analysing the children’s needs, 
• Procedures for analysing the potential obstacles the children may encounter in school,
• Design of individualised plans of support to the children,
• Planning activities to address the obstacles and prepare the schools, 
• Procurement (and creation) of the aids needed for work with the children,
• Description of the roles of various stakeholders and the support they need, 
• Mechanisms of cooperation among all the key stakeholders, and 
• Procedures for monitoring the extension of support to the children and for evaluating the achieved results. 

The following resources were designed and are available in the publication with the accompanying CD and posted on the following websites http://www.inkluzija.org/ and http://cipcentar.org. 

• Recommendations: How to prepare for the child’s enrolment in first grade and How to prepare for the child’s enrolment in fifth grade, targeting the children, their parents and the institutions; 
• Documentation: a Questionnaire for parents to collect information about the child; a Form for analysing the obstacles to the children’s full inclusion and for designing plans to overcome them; a Form for the design of individualised plans of support to children in their transition to higher levels of education;
• Checklist of various segments of the education process that need to be borne in mind and tailored to ensure the equitable participation of children with difficulties in the education process;
• Examples of good transition practices (19); 
• Manual with replies to 70 questions of teachers that have arisen in their practice – Practice-Based Advice;
• List of teaching aids and equipment supporting the development and education of children with difficulties; 
• Research instruments: Questionnaires for PIs, PS, kindergarten, grade and school teachers, protocols for Focus Groups with parents and PI and PS staff and interviews with experts. 

Publication can be downloaded here.