Mapping senior leaders’ perceptions of the impact of local and national covid-19 closure/lockdown policies on schools and vulnerable young people and those at risk of exclusion. Report of findings

A report of intellectual output 1. Erasmus+ Project Co-MAP: Collaborative, Community mapping of young people's learning experiences during COVID-19. Mapping senior leaders’ perceptions of the impact of local and national covid-19 closure/lockdown policies on schools and vulnerable young people and those at risk of exclusio

Future Challenges Report Editors

This report describes the results of the WP6 research activities performed in the first year of theGo-Lab Project and represents a Milestone in WP6 – Community Building and Support. It isserving the need for the identification of the current and future challenges as it regards ScienceEducation and the scope and the approach of the Go-Lab Project in order to address them in aholistic and state-of-the-art way. Therefore, the results and the conclusions are presented as abasis for further work. However, participatory engagement and the study of relatedmethodologies will continue during the life-cycle of the project and will allow partners engagedin these parts of the project to periodically update and enrich their work in this domain with newinputs, to go beyond the scope of this deliverable.For this reason, following the description of the activities performed and the conclusions thatcan be drawn from this work, the last chapter contains a set of open questions that will remainin the agenda of the project partners and will drive further activities.The structure of the report is the following: Chapter 2 presents the original hypotheses and themethodology connected, Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 present the main results according to thesources and approaches used to collect data and articulate them, Chapter 7 contains anintegrated overview of results and, together with the conclusions, presents a list of open issuesthat the project will continue to address in view of maximising its future impact.Finally the Six Discussion Papers (Challenge and Opportunities Papers) produced as a maincomponent of this study by WP6 partners are presented in Annex 1, while the list of names ofexperts interviewed is presented as Annex 2.The following conclusions are the result of the work reported here:1. The Future Challenges Study confirms the relevance of the aims and the approach adoptedby the Go-Lab Project in terms of its vision for school education in the future and of thepotential of the ICTs to contribute to this vision. The project’s specific contribution to theupgrade of Science Education at the European and international level is still considered assignificant, while the project's complementarity to a number of large-scale, Europe-wideinitiatives, supported by the European Union, coherent among themselves, is seen astimely.2. There is also a broad consensus on what the main challenges and the main areas ofchange are. In particular, these include the curricula reform and assessment methods, thecompetence-based learning and innovative pedagogy as well as the learner-generatedknowledge; additionally, the upgrade of teachers’ competences, the motivation and capacitybuilding towards change, the learners motivation as well as the upgrade of teachers' digitalcompetences, their familiarization with the digital technologies and the use of digitalresources. Addressing each of these challenges is possible and small-scale experiencesexist to demonstrate good practice, yet system-scale innovation is the real challenge.3. Nevertheless, although it is difficult to address all challenges simultaneously, this stillcorresponds to the best approach in order to reach the objective of system-scale innovation.Over thirty years of both European and national Programmes aiming at the adoption of ICTin education show that an integrated approach is indispensable in order to produce realimpact: technology infrastructure without the enhancement of teachers’ competences andmotivation will not change the way Science is taught - or better Science learning isexperienced - nor any change in pedagogical practice will ever happen without a change inthe way the curriculum is being conceived and built and the learning assessment is being delivered. It is therefore fundamental that the Go-Lab large scale piloting needs to besupported by the relevant institutions in each participating country and coupled with theabove-mentioned principles, if the project is to combine the bottom-up approach of theparticipating schools with the relevant “innovation policy” framework of the country. Thevirtuous circle between research, policy and innovative practice must be fully adopted bythe project.4. Stakeholders’ involvement is a crucial element in the project implementation: withoutstakeholders’ attention and consensus a mechanistic implementation of innovativeexperiences will not produce significant impact after the end of the project. Stakeholdersmust not only know about the Go-Lab Project, but also support its efforts, and in order to dothis they need to gain “ownership” of the pilot experiences and be allowed to gain animportant role in its future implementation.5. Formative Evaluation and Quality Assurance are two fundamental features of the Go-Labproject because they lead the way so that the partners keep an open and consistentcommunication channel among WPs and Tasks and, even more importantly, with thestakeholders, and as we have stated this is one of the keys for the maximization of theproject's impact in the medium and long term. If we look beyond the project “contractual life”– that is relatively long and already contains quite ambitious quantitative and qualitativeobjectives - the real success will consist in a large-scale follow up of the project results andtheir integration into the EU and the national policies for the modernization of ScienceEducation. To reach this goal a systemic and transparent documentation of the workingcycle of the project, of difficulties and improvements and of lessons learnt, is of utmostimportance.6. Finally, the Go-Lab Project has a lot of challenges to face in the next couple of years, andat the same time a real and concrete opportunity to become relevant, in view of ananticipated, systemic change of Science Education in Europe. Making this opportunity areality will depend on the conditions identified above and probably others that will emerge inthe coming years of the project. Every one of the identified challenges will need to drive theproject activities' planning, while in the meantime, certain important aspects that are stillopen will be addressed

Mapping senior leaders’ perceptions of the impact of local and national covid-19 closure/lockdown policies on schools and vulnerable young people and those at risk of exclusion. Report of findings

A report of intellectual output 1. Erasmus+ Project Co-MAP: Collaborative, Community mapping of young people's learning experiences during COVID-19. Mapping senior leaders’ perceptions of the impact of local and national covid-19 closure/lockdown policies on schools and vulnerable young people and those at risk of exclusio