Happy Kids-OPAL implemented the pilot training of pupils with supervision of RPIC-VIP's trainers, namely by Zuzana Vajďáková and Ondřej Peterka, between the dates of 19th-20th March 2012 at Sincan IMKB Vocational High School. 30 students and 5 trainers participated to the training which focused on Lifelong Learning skills.

The trainees provided active participation to the piloting which was based on an interactive learning. Transferred educational materials within the project were impressive and made a major contribution in this respect.

We received very positive feedbacks from the trainees and decided to organize the advanced one the scope of which will also be lifelong learning skills since the pupils were very interested. Besides, it would be very effective and valuable for their personal development as they mentioned.

The 5 trainers of the piloting school introduced suggestions for improvement as well and we talked about the goals for future with regards to SOS.NET objectives and sustainability of the achieved results through this methodology.

Effective and remarkable feedbacks gave us the opportunity of increasing productivity and team harmony for desirable future educational activities and encouraged us for the improvement.

More pictures here.

Between 2 and 5 of April 2012, the Czech partners participated at the supervision activity of the training courses in Romania, at the Economical College of Mountainous Banat from Reșița.

We have organised two training courses, one for The Competence of Cooperation and the other one for The Competence of Problem Solving, with the participation of 27 students and 4 trainers. Other 2 trainers have organised a training for The Competence of Cooperation during the English class, in order to prove that the didactical materials can also be adapted for the use in different disciplines, not only as standard training courses. At this particular course we had 25 participants. The courses were organised in three different locations, during the week dedicated to the Extracurricular Activities.

The feed-back from the courses was great, all the students agreed that this is a better way of learning and that the exercises are interesting, attractive and easy to understand for every one of them. The trainers consider that the training is very demanding, but full of satisfactions and benefits for sides, teachers and students.

We consider that "Learning by doing" is a way to value students' interests and qualities, to realize a connection between school and life. The training courses are a good way to develop key competencies that are so requested in the professional and personal life of our students, to prepare them not only as good professionals, but also as good people.

During the period January till March 2012, RPIC-VIP organised in total 11 information meetings which were attended by 152 teachers and students from Secondary schools from different regions in the Czech Republic. There were mainly teachers that are interested in implementing soft skills into their teaching lessons and who view development of soft skills at students as a very important part in young people development, which can help their future integration into a society. Teachers provided very positive feedback at these meetings and some were interested in participating in the Open Learning Platform which will be a part of the SOS.NET project´s website.

In the period 8-15 March 2012 in 32^nd Secondary School - Sofia were organized several information meetings with pupils in 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th grade. The meetings were attended by a total of 120 students in 6 groups. The main purpose of the events was to present the SOS.NET project and all 6 competencies to the students. Two of the trainers in the project - Rozalina Geneva and Nia Djurova discussed with the pupils the main aspects of social skills and all the benefits of this training approach. They also presented the project website and the options for pupils to make online self diagnostics of their competencies level. All of the pupils demonstrated great interest in online skills testing and willingness to participate in future trainings for the competencies that are most appropriate for them according to the diagnostics results.

During the period January 15- March 11, 2012 in the town of Varna, Bulgaria four trainings with pupils from the 9-th, 10-th, 11-th and 12-th grades from the National School for Humanitarian Sciences and Art "K. Preslavski", the Varna Navy Gymnasium "D-r Peter Beron", the Gymnasium for Foreign Language Learning "Yoan Ekzarh" and the III Science Maths Gymnasium in Varna were carried out. Two of the trainings were on the topic of Entrepreneurship, one was on the topic of Effective Communication and one on the topic of Problem Solving. Fifty-six children were trained in four groups. The training was carried out by Valentina Antonova. The initial interest for the proposed topics was tremendous – there were more than 150 pupils who wanted to undergo the training. Participants were proactive and extremely interested in the new type of interactive training and expressed their satisfaction with the experience they gained from the study materials presented in an innovative way. Most of them also expressed desire to undergo training for the other competencies as well. School managements supported the Project from the very beginning and shared the opinion that social skills are a grey area in our educational system and that there is a need of systematic training of both pupils and teaching staff.

During 18 – 21 February, 2012 in Dolna Banya a training for students from the 9-th, the 10-th and the 11-th grade from 137th Secondary school Angel Kunchev in Sofia was organized. Themes that were covered included Problem solving and Cooperation; a total of 44 pupils, divided into two groups took part in it. Training sessions were conducted by Rozalina Geneva, Vladimir Mikov, Borislava Yakova, Nia Djurova and Gergana Krumova. Their work was supervised by the experts from RPIC ViP, the Czech republic Zuzana Vazdakova and Marek Prorok, who expressed the opinion that the trainings have been organized well and were of good quality. The participants were active in the process and showed willingness to participate in trainings related to the other competencies as well. Feedback analysis discloses the fact that there is a great need amongst students for expansive and systematic training in the field of social skills. At the end of the trainings all students received certificates for training participation.

In the period 5-9 Dec 2011 in 18th School - Sofia was held pilot training of students in 9th grade. The topic was: communication skills. The training was attended by 165 students in 7 groups. The main scope was testing the methodology with demo version and popularizing of the competencies among the students. Participants were very impressed and shared that they would be happy to have an experience like this again and that they would like to attend training for some of the other competencies, too. They shared that they are keen on to participate the full version of the training because the time during the demo version was not enough. The training and work were extremely effective and the feedback was excellent.

From 20th until 23rd November 2011 there was a training of teachers in Hotel DUO in Horni Bečva (Czech Republic) within the SOS.NET project. There were 12 teachers from schools from the Moravia-Silesian region. For this training were selected particularly those teachers who are highly probable to use the acquired skills during their teaching lessons.

The teachers were actively involved in the exercises that help to develop social competencies, especially in communication and co-operation and they also watched DVD Mr Perfict. The training ran in a friendly atmosphere and the teachers submitted a positive feedback.

Between 10-12.09.2011, in Sofia, Bulgaria, the Second partnership meeting on the project SOS.NET, took place. Host of the meeting was the National Management School (NMS).

The main purpose of the meeting was the discussion of the adaptation process of the transferred educational materials on the 6 key competencies, the training of trainers from every country from the consortium.

During the meeting, analysis and evaluation was made on the first year of the project's activity, also the preparation of the interim report and the action plan for the next six months.

The next Partnership Meeting will be held in Resita, Romania on June 2012.

Between 6 and 9 September 2011, was held at the School of Estarreja, the training of teachers in the context of this project. Participation was effusive and the results can be considered excellent. In the end, all participants considered this a key initiative for the advancement of their knowledge in soft skills. The trainers responsible for this wonderful initiative were Mr. and Mrs. Marek Prorok Zuzana Vajdakova.

In the period 22-25 June 2011 in Sofia was held 4-day training of teachers on the six key competencies of the project. The training was attended by 13 teachers from secondary schools and university experts in the field of pedagogy. Participants in the training shared their excellent impressions and defined activities as extremely useful for their work.

In the period 16 to 19 June 2011 in Ankara, Turkey was carried out 4-day teacher training. The training was attended by 12 teachers from five different cities of Turkey. During the training teachers were given valuable tips on how to implement the acquired skills in their everyday teaching activities.

During the period 17-21 May 2011, in Resita, Romania, the Economical College of Mountainous Banat organized the training for the adaptation and development of the pedagogical approach for social competencies in the frame of the SOS.NET project. We had 15 participants: teachers, counsellors, school projects coordinators. The teachers training was full of interesting activities and everyone participated at the adaptation of the pedagogical materials for future students training. They also had the occasion of testing some of the exercises included in the training for the six social competencies: communication, cooperation, entrepreneurship, problem solving, lifelong learning, finding and managing information. The trainers were great, well prepared and entertaining; the course atmosphere was very cosy. Thanks to the beautiful weather, we also had the opportunity for an outside training. All the participants agreed on the importance of developing social competencies to the students, for their future integration in the modern society.

The second partner meeting will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria during the 10-12.10.2011 period. The objective of the meeting is to analyze the training process of the teachers for social competencies of students and to draw up the final version of the didactic materials to be used during training courses.

The first project workshop took place in Ankara during the 18-20.04.2011 period.

During the meeting Prof. Sonya Karabeliova presented the results from the survey on the socio-cultural context of all five participating countries. A total of more than 750 students and 250 teachers from secondary schools in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Portugal and Romania have been interviewed. Based on the discovered trends and the discussion which took place, the project partners were unanimous regarding the following decisions:

1. There is undeniably a need for the development of key competencies of young people;
2. The adaptation of didactic materials should be as close as possible to what has been developed by the Czech partners, due to the fact that the socio-cultural differences of national contexts, which have been discovered (attitudes, values, expectations regarding the educational institutions and teachers) could be regarded as insignificant with relation to the ideology and the competency approach;
3. The training of teachers as trainers for the development of social competencies of students will begin in May, 2011;
4. The platform for online diagnostics will be launched on 01.06.2011.

During the meeting the partners also discussed the activities aimed at popularization of the project, as well as the possibilities for dissemination of project results.

Host organization of the meeting was the partner from Turkey - OPAL Ltd. Mr.Ali Ulusoy and his team had created excellent conditions both for the working sessions, as well as for the spare time, which the participants found extremely enjoyable and interesting.

A meeting of all partners will be held in Turkey in April 2011, during which the results from the international survey on the socio-cultural context of teachers and their development at secondary schools will be discussed. The analysis of the survey, which includes all five partner countries will be taken into consideration during the process of preparation of the teachers’ training materials.

The first partner meeting between the partner institutions took place in Ostrawa on 24-26 of November, 2010.

The meeting was introductory for all partners - apart from getting to know each other better the partners also worked out a plan regarding the project administration and dissemination, as well as the carrying out of the survey on the socio-cultural context of teachers’ work in Bulgaria, the Czech republic, Turkey, Romania and Portugal.