Developing judo in schools

Background The Judo School Project addresses modern challenges of children health and digital distractions. Leveraging judo's physical and value-based benefits, the project aimed to enhance motor skills and promote unity among judoka across EU. It draws on a successful Slovenian study, with an emphasis on physical development and values in children. By comparing and harmonizing judo education across European nations, the project aim was to improve extracurricular offerings and create an impact on children. Objectives The Judo School Project aimed to promote unity, identity, and healthy lifestyles through judo in primary schools. Goals included sharing judo knowledge, values, and methodologies, expanding judo engagement, and enhancing physical and personal development. This EU project was aligned with European policies emphasizing physical education and social inclusion. This initiative seeks to unite judo clubs, foster European identity, and encourage children to embrace sports for lifelong well-being. Implementation Our main task was to find a way how to implement successful Slovenian project in other countries with different systems in primary schools. We concentrated on program promotion, parent awareness, making best possible training conditions and mostly learning how to correctly teach judo techniques for selected age categories. We recorded special video program with exercise examples and share it with all partners. We also explore best practices in adjusted judo competitions and belt grading system. Achievements During the length of the program, we were facing difficulties due to Corona outbreak. This is the reason why we requested for extension of the program. Nevertheless, we succeeded to have all meetings with shifted locations times due to the availability of certain countries in pandemic times. After initial online kick-off meeting, there were 5 transnational meetings as per our program in the following order: Slovenia, Croatia, Finland, Portugal, Slovenia. Detailed results in Report of activities.