E-MOTION - potential of hypersensitivity

5 Participating countries: Poland, Italy, Spain, Romania, North Macedonia

Start: 01-09-2018 - End: 31-08-2021

Project Reference: 2018-1-PL01-KA201-051033

EU Grant: 438.224 EUR

Programme: Erasmus+

Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Action Type: Strategic Partnerships for school education

As stated in Communication of EU:"School development and excellent teaching for a great start in life": Investing in early childhood education and care reduces the need for higher levels of spending at later stages of education, when the costs for closing the gaps between high and low performance of learners are higher. It stresses also that "high quality early childhood education and care lays the foundation of an effective and equitable education system.'

Psychological research confirms that inability to manage emotions, poor coping with emotions, excessive sensitivity of people seemingly weaker emotionally result in withdrawal, resignation, use of cognitive potential to rationalize their difficult situation, which blocks such people in social life, at school, and ultimately in the labor market. Two highly-important environments for children, both of which shape personalities and influence achievement, are the family and the school. The ability to integrate these communities and establish cooperation between them is key to a child’s welfare and success.
Highly sensitive children are attentive to the mood of other people, they get upset quickly, especially when they have to do many things at once, are accurate, disciplined, try not to make mistakes, it's difficult for them to work when they are watched, under pressure. Some of them are particularly talented. They are characterized by creativity, intuition, sensitivity. Their potential is both a weakness and big strength. HS children tend to have strong reactions, sometimes even explosive reactions, when events or surroundings are highly stimulating.

According to ECEC for children from disadvantaged Backgrounds report the most reliable EU study, the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project from UK gives information socio-emotional skills acquired in the preschool years early socialisation experiences are carried out in settings providing high quality care and education, the beneficial effects on children’s social and emotional development can persist considerably longer, although other factors – such as the quality of the home learning environment and further school experiences, also play important roles. In sum, it is the combination of different environments and different experiences over time that matters.

Project identifies and addresses specified needs of the target group: lack of diagnostics tools, lack of supporting training materials, lack of country related materials how to work with children with emotional problems. The diagnostic tool as well as supporting materials for teachers and parents will help them to understand the behaviours of highly sensitive children and take proper actions in order to help them in their development, in social live and in the process of education.

The main goal of the project is to develop, test and implement a comprehensive model of support for highly sensitive students in pre-school and early school age.
Specific objectives:
1. Developing the substantive assumptions of the model and the final product in the form of an online platform (with defined modules) supporting the work of teachers in pre school and primary school level.
2. Testing and validation of the developed, defining standards of the tool for partner countries.
3. Working instructions (psychometric guide and knowledge compendium for using the model for teachers; rules of cooperation with parents)
4. Development of materials (platform modules) supporting the work of teachers with highly sensitive students as well as cooperation with their parents.

In order to assure complex solution the main target group of the project has to include: pre and primary school teachers, parents and children. The explanation of defining these 3 groups is difficult to divide in separate sections. The growing number of behaviour problems can be observed in schools, especially in kindergartens and first years of school education, and parents seem to be more and more helpless. Taking into account that this is the most promising period when parents are still actively involved in the lives of pre-school children, stay in touch with the teacher, are willing to work for the child. They lack the skills, and knowledge to address problems affecting their children and in the future also society.

Substantive solutions will allow the initial identification of features and behaviours that indicate emotional high sensitivity and proposing working methods that allow for the development of potential. Until now, neither in the consortium countries, the subject of highly sensitivity (emotional and motivational problems) has been the subject of research, especially in the context of support for the teacher's work. The implementation of a comprehensive model will be implemented in the form of individual / group work with teachers who will be able to integrate the developed solution into their work with students and cooperation with parents.

Materials:

_{* Flyer of the project in Macedonian can be found HERE!}

_{* Booklet ready-to-use scenarios to support program for highly sensitive children in the preschool - in Albanian HERE! and in Macedonian HERE!}

_{* Learn about how to support higly sensitive child - for video's in English HERE! in Macedonian HERE!}

_{* How to help a higly senitive child in pre-school adaptation - for the presentation HERE!}

_{* Psychotherapeutic approach and work with highly sensitive children - for the presentation HERE!}

_{* Compendium for the support of higly sensitive childrens - HERE!}

_{* Psychometric Book - HERE!}

_{* Educational Materials - HERE!}

You can follow our work:

_{* Facebook page of the project - HERE!}

_{* Web page of the project - HERE!}