Thinking hands: inclusive education for special needs students

The overall goal of the project was to create a school environment suitable for promoting inclusive education of children at risk of exclusion, with special educational needs and/or disabilities t...

The overall goal of the project was to create a school environment suitable for promoting inclusive education of children at risk of exclusion, with special educational needs and/or disabilities through the arts. Specific objectives (SO) were: SO1 to define a framework of useful tools for the inclusion of students at risk, SEN, or with disabilities through a methodology based on education through art SO2 to provide educators and teachers with knowledge, skills and competencies to facilitate inclusive education at school SO3 to test the "Thinking hands" methodology in 3 different countries, laying the groundwork for systematizing a European model SO4 to disseminate project results to local communities, inviting more schools to adopt the methodology developed during the project

The activities carried out by the project were: A1 Kick-off meeting: held at the beginning of the project A2- Elaboration of the "Thinking hands" booklet: which involved the elaboration of an initial research and collection of good practices on the project theme and then the joint elaboration of the booklet, enriched by the experience of all project partners A3- Training of trainers: carried out by SiripArte, holders of the good practice, in Madrid, Spain, preparatory to the pilot action. A4- Pilot Action: consisted on the experimentation of the "Thinking Hands" methodology in 3 different European countries, through the holding of workshops dedicated to children with and without learning disabilities and the preparation of a final report on the results of the experimentation. A5- Project events: which were attended by more than 110 people in the 3 partner countries. A6- Project management and promotion of results.

The main results achieved through the project were: -"Thinking Hands" booklet: this is the main output of the project. It is a tool containing the methodology developed in the first months of the project and a series of worksheets ready to be applied in the classroom, aimed at promoting student inclusion through art. -Transnational training course for teachers and educators; -Report of the pilot action containing the results of the testing of the methodology; -3 project promotion events in the 3 partner countries.