Beneficiary: VšĮ Lauko darželis
National Agency: Education Exchanges Support Foundation (Švietimo mainų paramos fondas)
Programme: „Erasmus+“, KA2 – Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practice, KA229 – School Exchange Partnerships
Project No. 2018-1-LT01-KA229-047074_1
Project Title: Preschools Community Strengthening based on outdoor learning and culture differences
Start of the project: 01-12-2018
End of the project: 30-11-2020
Project duration: 24 months

PROJECT SUMMARY

All preschools involved to the project meet a lot of problems when they are trying to engage the entire local community to preschool environment. It is very difficult process for preschools. Creating a successful community pre-school partnership is a complex, challenging, and time-consuming task. To be effective, partnerships need to engage in a thoughtful process to define a vision and clear goals. Community pre-school partnerships also need to draw from a broad range of perspectives and expertise—from inside the pre-school as well as from other organizations and individuals within the community. Finally, community pre-school partnerships need to connect, coordinate, and leverage resources from a variety of sources to support and continue their work. All project partners believe that sharing of other different cultures best experiences of engagement of the local community will improve the quality of preschool education.

Project objective – improve the quality of preschool education with sharing new intercultural methods and best outdoor learning practice engagement the entire local community to preschool environment.

The project tasks:

1) raise the competence of employees (teacher and administrative staff) through participation in international trainings;
2) share the knowledge and best practise among other preschool partner countries achieving to engage the entire local community – children, teachers, parents, family members, administrative staff, volunteers, locals around;
3) to strengthen the entire local community based on outdoor pedagogy methods and best examples of partners countries.

The project is addressed:

– 57 project participants (teachers and administrative staff) who participated in project C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6 training activities
– 468 students (children) in local activities
– 1015 parents and family members in local activities
– 68 other preschool teachers and administrative staff in local activities
– 93 other relevant stakeholder (locals, experts, other preschools) in local activities
– 6 preschool organizations (like institutions)

Qualitative expected project results:

– exchanged best experiences about strengthening of local community based on outdoor learning,
– better quality of preschool education based on outdoor learning and local community integration to the preschools environment,
– greater understanding and responsiveness to social, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity,
– innovative approaches for more attractive preschool education – engagement to preschool environment the entire local community,
– better understanding about different culture education methods in children groups,
– increased accessibility to quality preschool outdoor education,
– strong strategic partnership with partner organisations,
– more positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values.