Schools as Learning Communities in Europe: Enlarging Successful Educational Actions for all

Enlarge SEAS has extended the network of schools implementing and sharing Successful Educational Actions (SEAS) in Europe to new countries. SEAs, (1. Interactive Groups, 2. Dialogic Literary Gatherings, 3. Family Education, 4. Educative participation of the community, 5. Dialogic Pedagogical training for teachers, 6. Dialogic conflict prevention and resolution model) were initially identified by the INCLUD-ED project (FP6, 2006-2011) as actions that increase academic results for all students, especially for those belonging to vulnerable groups, improving coexistence, family participation and social cohesion. After the first network promoted by the SEAS4ALL project (2015-1-ES01-KA201- 016327), ENLARGE has successfully promoted 15 new schools in the Czech Republic, Portugal, Malta, and Spain that have implemented SEAs. For doing that, the partners have developed specific training and shared their learning, difficulties and advancements. Notably, the pandemic brought unforeseen challenges, further increasing the need to effectively reach all families and children in the most challenging situations. While the SEAs that were implemented until now were based on the strong participation of the communities in schools (e.g. with diverse and regular volunteering in the classroom), schools reinvented and shared new forms of implementing the actions respecting social distancing and other related measures. As a result, around 2.000 students have benefited from better opportunities to live included in today’s society. In all the involved schools, there has been an increase in the percentage of the students from vulnerable groups achieving the basic skills and competencies, improvement of the absenteeism and early school leaving rates, better coexistence, and more family and community engagement and participation reaching almost 200 volunteers. The project also had a strong political impact, involving 26 policymakers and achieving, for instance, the national scale of the SEAs in the Malta case. Finally, the project has developed a series of series of open access courses available at the website of the project and soon at the School Education Gateway that support the implementation and scaling up of the benefits of the SEAS to all schools interested in Europe. This material contributes to strengthening the profile of the teaching profession by promoting an evidence-based approach in all practices developed in the schools.