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Keep the "bull" out of school: an anti-bullying project for school success
Start date: Jul 1, 2014, End date: Jun 1, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Over the last decades, a worldwide phenomenon became a major concern in every healthy society. Young people become victims or actors of bullying within their school settings. The media project serious incidents of violence within the school settings, with the actors and victims usually being teenagers or even children. The vast majority of students though become involved in less violent acts in a more systematic way. Bullying is a negative factor, since it interferes to the operation of the school and the psychological well-being of the students. As stated by Olweus, bullying deprives the rights of every student, since every student has the right to feel and be safe at school. Furthermore, bullying has been highly associated with early school drop outs and school failure. The lack of education and training on behalf of the educators opposes further obstacles to the efficient prevention of the phenomenon. The current project acknowledges the lack of training of educators and the importance of the development of educational plans that will aim its occurrence on the first place, rather than its treatment. The main aim of the project is to provide educators with guidelines on the thematic area of bullying, and reflect on the development of an educational plan within the school community in order to eliminate the early school leaving and combat the school failure. Thus, the main purposes of the current project are two-fold: to provide the teachers with the necessary skills and methodologies to deal with bullying, and to develop a plan within the school community that allows for alternative ways of communication and expression, other than restoring to violence, and stands as a preventive measure tackling the phenomenon of bullying. The objectives of the project are: - provide knowledge regarding bullying, its impact, and its prevention, and provide guidelines for symptoms of victims, bystanders and actors and correlation factors - analyze and research various phenomena at school, applying this knowledge into practice later by transforming it into an action plan - exchange practices from school communities and youth work related to bullying - cultivate a different learning experience for students and teachers that will introduce them to new ways of learning, observing, and behaving - promote skills other than the traditional ones through the use of sports and arts - enable students and teachers to advance their communication skills, and make use of problem-solving skills and creative thinking - stimulate the curiosity of the participants on bullying and reinforce attitudes that will lead to an understanding through the interaction with people from diverse backgrounds - reduce the phenomenon of early drop-outs by eliminating incidents of bullying and increasing the self-confidence of participants The project will initiate its actions with a 5-day teachers’ training on bullying, offering as far as possible space of exchange and interaction using active methods. The program of the training will be conducted in collaboration with Dublin City University and will be using an interactive and participative approach. A team of experts will design and carry out the program of the training. On the basis of their personal experiences, participating educators will connect the theory with the praxis, compare and discus differences in prevention and treatment efforts, along with their didactical and pedagogical implications. The outcome of the training will be to establish an educational plan that will be implemented the upcoming year within the school community. The educational plan will consist of various activities that will be interlaced; sports, arts, human rights education, a policy plan, an organized environment during recess time, and a parents’ education will all be part of the educational plan. The educational plan will be guided by the team of experts of the initial training of educators. Seven teachers of the Alambra Primary School will have the opportunity to participate at the initial training. The target group of the project though will be the whole of the school community, including the students (of ages 6-12) and the teachers, since an educational plan will be developed and implemented in the upcoming year, resulting in the reduction of bullying and the promotion of a healthier life-style within the school community. Final beneficiaries will be the parents and the families of the learners, since educating parents will be part of the educational plan. What’s more, beneficiaries will be a large number of educators in Cyprus, since the results will be shared and school communities will be assisted in developing their own educational plans for the successful prevention of bullying. The project envisions building on the personal and social development of learners, contributing on a long-term basis to the “establishment’ of ethical, rightful and respectful citizens.
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