Manual to plan and perform School-Community projects

Created Oct. 13, 2023, 8:26 a.m.

Updated Nov. 24, 2023, 8:19 a.m.

The Open Schooling approach leads to a sustainable networking system between schools and their communities. Open Schooling asks private individuals, schools - students and teachers alike - companies, non-profit organisation as well as associations and professional and nonprofessional networks to work in peer to peer collaboration. The goal is to develop strategies jointly and to overcome current environmental and social challenges. This collaborative work is supposed to drive social change and help students acquire skills and abilities to participate actively in a 21rst century knowledge society.

This document is for educators, teaching in formal and non-formal educational settings, who are willing to engage in Opens Schooling projects together with their students. The manual has been developed within the framework of the EU-funded project MOST -Meaningful Open Schooling Connects Schools to Communities - and has been tested by a number of international partners. One of the main attributes of Open Schooling projects is the collaboration between schools and communities; this is why single projects are named School-Community Projects (SCP). The manual describes important stages of a developmental process SCP leaders should consider while carrying out a SCP. It introduces a framework and offers ideas for whom to include, and how to co-create an appealing, socially relevant approach that will affect the regional community itself. In addition, you will find recommendations how to put ideas into practice, communicate them and find out whether or not your project is successful. The manual relates to the ‘Pedagogical guidelines and exemplary science materials’ produced by the Norwegian MOST partners from NTNU in Trondheim. This resource can also be found in this repository.

The objective of this document is to provide an insight into the overall design of school community projects. The INCREASE-Trail Map (fig. 1) explains the different sequence of stages – this framework has already proven to be successful in other Open Schooling projects. To illustrate single steps, the manual mentions best practice examples from Open Schooling projects conducted in course of the EU MOST initiative.