Together We Stand Against Bullying

<< Background >>All individuals have the right to benefit from education equally. It is our duty to create a high-quality education environment without being bullied in our schools. The most common problem in all European schools is peer bullying and our schools face it as well. The numbers of peer bullying in our countries and in our schools are still high, even if there are local/national projects to try and combat them.We observe that this issue impacts school environment, decreases our students’ academic success and impacts early school dropout numbers. We wrote this project to effectively combat peer bullying by sharing experiences and good practices in our schools, by contacting and communicating with different people with similar problems, and also by learning different techniques and finding new and effective approaches ( e-g- KiVA method). << Objectives >>Concrete objectives we wanted to achieve: •meet the needs of participants and transfer them to their institutions, cities and countries in the prevention of bullying;•increase the awareness of our schools in peer bullying and to gain international competence in combating it;•minimize the number of cases of bullying and prevent early school leaving;•Improve our institutional capacities with innovative approaches;•present an innovative vision to our institutions regarding digitalization and social skills with the activities to be done;•create organizations that are conscious about cyberbullying and have high awareness of the dangers and of the ways to avoid them;•improve the use of internet and internet tools, have digital ethical principles that comply with e-Safety principles;•raise trust in our schools through communication and cooperation with parents, students, teachers and schools by addressing the issue of inclusion;•promoting equality and non-discrimination. << Implementation >>We implemented three mobilities: one virtual course that served as preparation for the other two activities, mobilities in Greece and Czech Republic. Within the physical mobilities we had programmes that included presentations, sessions with specialists and/or stakeholders, group dynamics, role plays, production of videos, and organizing and implementing sessions with peers. Also, we had all the activities related to planning, organization, dissemination and monitoring that were carried out in meetings in between mobilities.<< Results >>The main results expected were met with the main activities all being completed successfully. The online course was attended by thirty teachers and guidance staff from the partner schools, which met the numbers in the. After that, two mobilities to host countries, involving 3 teachers/guidance staff and 4 students from each partner country was also achieved (apart from one student that could not participate and falls into the force majeur category, as explained in the activity). Moreover, the course served as a basis for the organization of activities in the mobilities and, for the teachers/guidance staff that late did not participate in the mobilities, it served as a good example for their daily practices in dealing with bullying. The mobilities involved the expected number of staff and students and all the activities developed during those periods were very relevant for both groups, giving them a number of good practices to get inspiration for their daily practices and interventions. Some of the activities were later replicated or adapted to be used with other students in the partner schools and the main way od disseminate acquired knowledge and practices.