Our School was created in 2005 as a non-State school rights. There are 120 students (cooks (catering) or carpenters). Our students are in age 14-18. We employ 28 teachers & 3 administrative staff. The main reason for creating such a school was taking the youths’ problems into account & give them a chance to get education. A large group of our students is neglected, with few life chances, with a difficult & not adjusted social & environments (family issues, crime, having a hard time at school. Our goal is to help youths at risk of marginalization or social exclusion, improving social & professional activation including acquirement of new qualifications & educational skills in the use of information technology, increase the motivation to learn & search employment, to increase their self-esteem. Ηighly specialized staff & a broad-based collaboration teaching environment in Pleszew play an important role in the educational process. Besides traditional teaching classes, the staff spends a lot of time on extracurricular activities & has a good contact with teenagers.
Our school is a partner in E.S.S.E:N.C.E.- Entrepreneurial Skills in Schools Education: Nurturing Citizenship & Entrepreneurship project. The project covers the horizontal priority concerning the “achievement of high-quality skills & competences”, through the development of a specific training course aimed at teachers of the first cycle of education. The course aims to provide teachers with an innovative teaching/learning methodology in order to improve assessment skills (on the subject of entrepreneurship) through the use of a set of web-based assessment & self-assessment tools. At the end of the training, the teachers will have acquired high quality skills related to assessment & entrepreneurship issues & will be able, at the same time, to have an innovative tool (e-portfolio) to verify these skills. The project will guarantee not only the improvement of the school system, capable of offering highly qualified teachers able to carry out extracurricular activities to stimulate the transversal skills of the learners, but will allow the teachers themselves to improve their professional profile by favoring employability, development socio-educational & professional.
Secondly, the project aims at the development of “digital innovative practices & tools”, in order to favor & increase their use in the school system; the provision of online focus groups for the collection of national data, rather than in presence, as well as the creation of the E-portfolio as a tool for self-evaluation & memory of experiences & achievements, will proceed in this direction, with the aim of provide teachers & schools with a targeted & digital evaluation methodology. In particular, the E-portfolio will consist of a facilitating tool for the implementation of the project methodology, ensuring the constant collection of digital artifacts related to the learning outcomes of learners, which will serve not only as a database of their progress, but also as a tool to support teachers in the process of periodic assessment of entrepreneurial skills.
Finally, the activities proposed are in line with the priority concerning the “school education” area of “promotion & acquisition of skills”, in particular of entrepreneurial ones. The goal is to convey to entrepreneurs an entrepreneural mindset already at the primary level, thanks to a kind of active learning based on the game & on the natural curiosity ofthe boys; the development of activities & games capable of stimulating in the very young qualities such as creativity & initiative, accompanied by the constant use of self-assessment tools, will contribute to fostering the entrepreneurial behavior of young people & the in-depth knowledge of themselves, allowing to recognize one’s own abilities & limits, to conquer one’s identity & to continuously improve oneself.