Erasmus blogs, Projects

Leadership and Management in Schools – Valencia Experience

The Teacher Academy training course 'Leadership and Management in Schools' held in Valencia in October 2022 was intended for members of educational establishments who wish to further their management skills and serve as leaders to their schools to the best of their ability.

The training participants were school principals and vice-principals, head teachers, and administrative staff from different European countries who have multiple years of experience behind them. Their passion and pride in being part of educational establishments that help elevate personal and social life was prominent in everyone.

There was a sense of togetherness bound by the love of our job, but also a sincere curiosity for others' experiences and feedback, as everyone there had surprisingly different school organisation, approaches, and roles inside the school system.

This diversity made the program more enjoyable, as it proved the point that there is no one (perfect) way of managing a school. Flexibility, adaptability, creativity, and compassion for the needs of others are all crucial skills for a good manager. It isn't always just about logic and chasing goals.

We were also lucky enough to have a representative of the praised Finnish school system among us, whose take on student integration and the challenges coming from the current political events were highly educational and thought-provoking.

Setting goals and overcoming differences 

The program touched upon the methodologies of setting goals and their completion. A well throughout, measurable, and relevant goal is half the success. We were given tools, e.g. Trello, that are a practical representation of the lessons learned.

The majority of the material was focused on working with people, understanding the differences in personality, character, and the general sense of work dynamics and culture. We discussed possible managing styles and their perceived outcomes. Every new topic fell back on introspection and defining our identity as a leader now and the ideal we strive for.

Taking the time to get to know your team properly and being aware of their weaknesses and strengths, establishing quality, open communication lines helps tremendously in proficient work assignment and execution. To achieve that, we discussed possible meeting tactics, negotiation, and conflict resolution principles. One interesting and fun activity was taking the 16 personality test, which led to some surprising results.

The week-long training on leadership and management in schools gave us a lot to think about and further explore in the future. The culturally rich, welcoming, and architecturally breathtaking city of Valencia made the whole experience that more enjoyable.

Mobility of course participant is enabled within the project "Step up", code number: 2021-1-HR01-KA122-ADU-000018329. 

The project is funded by the European Union. 

Erasmus +: Enriching lives, opening minds.

Monija Škriljevečki

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Erasmus KA2: Our first hosting experience in the LTT activity – Creativity for Innovation

Reflecting on last week.

Last week our organisation hosted its first ever LTT activity within the KA2 project.

The project Creativity for Innovation is a strategic partnership project that aims to share creative methods within three sectors: creativity, adult education and language schools.

The aim of last week was to show you the Callan Method and complementary activities that we use to boost students' confidence in learning the English language, as the main objective of the project is to implement creative and innovative methods in the work of the organisations involved.

There was a lot we had to cover. Monday’s session started with a meet&greet and icebreaker activities where we all got to know each other better.

We were hosting staff from Storytelling Centre Amsterdam and Europass Teacher Academy from Florence, Italy, for the whole week.

The session started with the main methodology, getting to know the Callan Method and its principals. Participants could learn how the Callan Method of learning was akin to learning a native language in children, and furthermore, why repetition and talking is so important.

The Callan Method is a method that can shock you at first. Feeding the answers to the students and not letting you think is something most of us are not ready for when we enter the classroom for the first time. But the initial surprise was overcome when everyone got a little more familiar with it and used to it throughout the week.

To ease the initial shock of the Callan Method, which can sometimes feel intense, especially in the beginning, a different type of city tour was planned for the afternoon – a witch tour.

Witches have a long and very well documented history in Zagreb, thanks to Marija Jurić Zagorka, a writer and female journalist from the 19th century. Her books portray women accused of witchcraft in a positive light. If you ever visit Zagreb, you will see that the legend of witches is incorporated in a lot of the capital's stories.

On Tuesday, the participants of the project took part in 2 workshops: a Grammar Refresher, an exercise that always helps our students get their English juices flowing, and a Small Talk workshop, something that is aimed at higher stages and people who want to improve their business skills.

The aim of these activities was to show a wide range of materials that we offer to our students outside of the Callan Method.

We also partook in a roundtable discussion and talked about the principals of the Callan Method and other activities that could be implemented in the work of our partners’ organisations.  The picture was still not clear on what to take from the Callan Method and how to implement it, so our job was to show the participants more depth to the method and all the possibilities it offers.

Proposed elements of the Callan Method to be incorporated into participants’ teaching styles were

QUESTION-ANSWER EXCERSISE

REVISION IS KEY

MAKING MISTAKES IS ENCOURAGED

Wednesday was reserved for our Book Club meeting. Prior to the LTT activity, at the first transnational meeting, we had agreed to incorporate Book Club as a part of the creative method of learning a language.

This adds another complementary activity to Callan. Here, students don’t have to follow the structure of the book, but can freely express their own ideas, feelings and reflect on the book in a more casual conversation, much like one that might have when they meet a friend. Book Club, needless to say, also improves their reading skills and understanding of the culture. 

The book we were talking about was Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession and the session was moderated by our teacher Maria, and the topics we covered were family, isolation, friendship and mindfulness – all the main topics of the book.

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On Wednesday we prepared a workshop on ICT tools in language learning and headed out to Sljeme. We took a short hike from Šestinski Lagvić to the newly restored Medvedgrad Castle. We had lunch at Sljeme, but had to leave some space for our evening activity – our Cook & Chat workshop.

The evening ended by watching the workshop at the school and eating all the lovely food we had prepared for the cultural night. There was traditional Italian Panettone and Italian sweet wine, some Croatian cheese and truffles with prosciutto, and wine again 😊

Friday was left for another session of the Callan Method and a demonstration of the exam. Here, some things finally clicked with the participants and they left hungry for more Callan demonstration, which we will incorporate in our future meetings.

To conclude the week, we had some evaluation and feedback where we heard that there is a lot more to explore in our school about the Callan Method, as well as our creative activities, and we are looking forward to hearing from our partners about what activities they want to implement in their own work.

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Project partners:
The Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes
@StorytellingCentre
@europassteacheracademy

@OneDublinOneBook

🇪🇺 The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme.
Erasmus+ : Enriching lives, opening minds. ☺️
#erasmus+
#ErasmusPlus
#erasmuska2

Step Up – KA 1 Erasmus+ projekt
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Soft skills and emotional intelligence for teachers and education staff

The training held on 31.10. - 6.11. 2021 in the lovely city of Bologna focused primarily on soft skills, that is, knowledge that we’d have difficulty acquiring through formal education, but which is key and prerequisite to successful work - especially when working with people.

The key words of the training were: cooperation and empathy, and through implementing those we covered the issues of assertive communication, teamwork and leadership, conflict management, emotional intelligence, nonverbal communication, and public speaking.

Through the subject of assertive communication, we covered different styles of communication, ranging from passive through aggressive to assertive where the emphasis was on how to successfully say no. We have clarified the issue of conflict by explaining types of conflicts, to the reasons why they occur and the use of conflicts as opportunities and styles of dealing with them.

Teamwork on the other hand was covered through various confidence building activities with the participants of the training and through the prism of good leadership - Goleman’s leadership styles and reflection on one’s own superiors. We connected the idea of nonverbal communication as a means of communication through which we receive 2/3 of all information and advice for successful decoding with public speaking - giving speeches and evaluating aspects of a successful speech; speech preparation, structuring, use of silence and audience, etc.

Each of these individual skills can be applied in multiple ways - from communicating with our students, where assertive communication, coping with conflict, and public speaking particularly stand out as important, not only when we teach but also when we communicate with one other.

I would particularly like to emphasize the importance of exercises that were based on teamwork and leadership – where we can act as leaders to our colleagues and students - who depend on our experiences and knowledge.

How to say no and a successful assertive attitude are skills that are of great importance not only to me personally, but also to our team where in addition to sharing various ideas with each other, we are in contact with students who sometimes don’t understand why something can’t go exactly the way they want it to. Exactly for these reasons – when someone else’s opinion is valued and respected but when we cannot please everyone, it is important to know how to set healthy boundaries and by using empathy and emotional intelligence to ensure both sides are satisfied with the outcome.

Public speaking is one of the key skills for all our teachers, unfortunately currently limited due to the epidemiological situation, but perhaps exactly why it was useful to freshen up my knowledge of how body language, voice, eye contact and gesturing help to establish a positive relationship and trust.

A unique opportunity to exchange ideas with people from all over Europe, including Estonia, the Czech Republic, England, Hungary, Turkey and Germany, going to Bologna was interesting not only in a professional way where I expanded my perception of the importance of emotional intelligence, empathy, teamwork and cooperation but also in a personal way because I got acquainted with the lively Italian culture and way of living that left its mark in my future thoughts on how to work and perform.

Natalija Benić

Project partners:
The Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes

ELA Teacher Trainings

The project is funded by the European Union. Erasmus+ : Enriching lives, opening minds.

Step Up – KA 1 Erasmus+ projekt


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