EU Project Experience

Some experience (1 - 2 previous projects)

We have recently kicked off an EU KA2 project called BANG with four other partners across Europe:

• Kaos Pilots (Denmark) lead partner
• Politecnico DI Milano (Italy)
• High School of Agrinio (Greece) and
• Secondary School of Agriculture and Forestry Vinkovci (Croatia)

The project will provide a new digital platform for EU teachers to support critical and creative thinking in the classroom. Any teacher from any subject discipline will be able to use the resources to support dynamic learning and problem solving. A plug and play repository of creative tasks and exercises will be created.

The B!G Idea is responsible for quality assurance, measuring and reporting impact, resource and activity development, co-development of student and teacher experience and testing and trialing the platform.

‍

EU Funding Goals

European partnerships would offer us the opportunity to develop and share our knowledge in an international environment. Helping us to increase our internal skill base and develop new relationships with innovative organisations, we would hope to increase our impact and bring creative skills to EU youth.

Ideally we would like to build a European network to gain a foothold into the educational systems of other European countries, allowing us to research the positioning in foreign schools with an alternative language, different education systems and professional associations. This would enable us to develop our model to be incorporated into these settings.

In time we would like the opportunity to access funding to develop the digital competences, supporting youth learning, creativity and innovation and to create customised resources and lesson plans for teachers to support youth learning internationally. Being a fully digital hybrid programme, we will continue to develop our digital experience, allowing every future student to participate in a truly inclusive way. With the support of some European partnerships we could bring this to a higher level, with endless exciting possibilities.

‍

Strengths

• Access to students with high engagement rate in both rural and urban settings.
• Thousands of 15-19 year olds on our waiting list
• Experience in Irish school system with focus on disadvantaged youth (LCA and *Youthreach)
• Access to students speaking a minority language (Irish/Gaeilge).
• Access and experience working with post-primary teachers in Ireland.
• Access to hundreds of industry professionals and academic mentors.
• Development and implementation of innovative creative curriculum.
• Design of supporting assets and resources to compliment learning.
• Integrating universal design for learning (UDL) in content and experience.
• Ensuring equity in education for diverse student needs.
• Experience creating a multi-award-winning student programme.
• Expertise in developing original creative exercises for a hybrid and digital learning environment.
• Bespoke assessment framework for student and teacher learning.
• Developing connections and pathways between industry professionals and education (students and teachers) for meaningful learning experiences.
• System design facilitating supported learning between industry peers, students and teachersCPD for industry professionals (mentors) and teachers.
• Collaboration with diverse partners. - Relationship management with schools and industry partners.
• Running online events with stakeholders.
• Delivering globally acclaimed design products and services.
• Experience creating assessment frameworks for projects and measuring impact and quality assurance.
• Experience working with tight budgets, resources and timelines.
• Decades of experience within the team in project management and working with multiple stakeholders.
• Internationally recognised team of experts from the Irish creative and education sectors.
• We are an organisation of doers, makers and shakers, we love working collaboratively and we like to think of ourselves as fun, nice and easy-going people to work with!

*Leaving Cert Applied - Leaving Cert Applied is a two year programme aimed at preparing students for adult and working life. The Leaving Cert Applied is often taken by senior-level school students who feel the traditional Leaving Certificate isn’t for them, but who still want to continue with school and prepare for life after they leave. Youthreach - The Youthreach programme provides two years integrated education, training and work experience for unemployed early school leavers without any qualifications or vocational training who are between 15 and 20 years of age.