School EducatioN for Sustainable and Equal Inclusion

The School EducatioN for Sustainable and Equal Inclusion [SENSEI] project will create and deliver courses on inclusive education for both pre-service and in-service teachers, by looking at current good practices in inclusion, testing them in different contexts, and integrating them with new approaches.

Why this project?

In 1916, Charles H. Wesley(1)  mentioned that history and citizenship teachers very often feel challenged by having children in their classrooms who come from various national and religious backgrounds, having different social status, mental and physical skills, children not mastering or having poor knowledge of the language. Today, teachers from across Europe still struggle with diverse classroom. In fact, in the past years we have assisted to an increased in the amount of teachers requiring subject-specific training that will help them create and follow through with educational actions that cater to every child’s individual needs, without removing them from the classroom into a separate learning environment.

We believe that by working together in inclusive classrooms, children become more tolerant and can engage with different students with different learning styles, which further enables them to learn from each other and improve their communication skills, empathy, intercultural and civic competences, ultimately resulting in a wider understanding and internalisation of those values that are at the core of the European Union.

In this project, we will develop a module for Initial Teacher Training and a hybrid International Continued Professional Development course that help in- and pre-service teachers acquire the competences needed to differentiate and scaffold their lessons so as to make the (history) classroom experience more meaningful, motivating, and inclusive for all students.

Our approach to inclusion

In this project, we will have a 360 degrees vision of inclusion and inclusive education: we will look at the inclusion of students with special education needs, including high-attaining students; at the inclusion of students with a migrant background; at the inclusion of students that are part of national, cultural, or religious minorities; at the inclusion of students from a different socioeconomic background. We will also research practices for the inclusion and representation of students that are member of the LGBTQI+ community.

Concrete results

This project will result in:

• The creation of a network of teachers, teacher trainees, teacher trainers, and other relevant stakeholders who are working on and interested in inclusive education;
• The issuing of recommendations for Teacher Training Institutes on teaching inclusion and diversity;
• A module for Teacher Training Institutes on inclusive education
• A webinar series and a self-paced course on Inclusive Education
• Several in-person training opportunities at international events