The LOOP Erasmus+ project is now in its second year of implementation and starting the policy experimentation phase. The partnership has concluded the designing of the policy tools with the active engagement of the teaching community through co-design sessions held in the partner countries. Based on this participatory approach, the following tools were developed:

1. A mentor’s capacity programme and a teacher’s induction programme based on mentoring to support the initiation to the teaching profession
   The mentor’s capacity programme, aimed to train experienced teachers and school leaders to act as mentors of new teachers, is now complete and the field trials are about to start in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Greece. Between 20 to 30 mentors are expected to be trained in each country to act as mentors of their colleagues from January 2023 onwards supporting the implementation of the teacher’s induction programme.
   The teacher’s induction programme, based on mentoring is also ready. It addresses new teachers initiating their career paths and aims to support them in adapting to the new workplace culture. It covers professional issues, legal/administrative topics of the teaching profession and socio-cultural aspects related to the school/cluster of schools norms and processes. The field trials of the induction programme are set to take place between January and June 2023 and the consortium hopes to involve more than 500 teachers in all the countries.
   To implement effectively the field trials, a training course was organized. The ”Train the Trainers” Staff Capacity Programme took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from 19th to 23rd September 2022, aiming to train, at the national level, future trainers that will now train the experienced teachers to become mentors. In addition to the theoretical training, the participants also attended several workshops which focused on self-reflection on their career path, empathy, communication, the strength of mindset, etc.
   If you are interested in participating in the piloting of the mentor’s capacity course and/or teacher’s induction programme, reach out to us through our website contact form.
2. Policy Brief on the current landscapes of the partner countries’ educational systems.
   We have released the first Policy Brief that includes: a) an analysis of the current landscapes about the teaching career in the different countries of the consortium, b) alternative views on the teaching career and their potential consequences or impacts, and c) a set of policy recommendations.
   The results from the policy brief were already presented in three policy seminars. On July the 1st, a seminar was carried out in Lisbon, Portugal for the presentation of the Policy Report, which was attended by 30 stakeholders who discussed the requirements for the generalization of induction programmes based on mentoring and the essential conditions for that. On July the 8th, the policy brief was presented to 120 relevant stakeholders both online and virtually, in a broader round table organized in Athens, Greece, with the stakeholders finding the policy recommendations highly relevant and giving important feedback. Finally, a seminar was conducted in Slovenia on the 13th and 14th of September, with the participants highlighting the process of evaluation during mentor induction as a point of focus during the implementation of the programmes.
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On September 13 and 14, 2022 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a Policy Seminar was organized by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (Ministrstvo za izobraževanje, znanost in šport), presenting the policy recommendations that have been developed in the framework of LOOP. The participants were teachers, principals, as well as policy makers.
The seminar can overall be characterized as a success, with the participants being engaged in the discussion, offering feedback and constructive solutions. They were in agreement with the policy recommendations suggested by the consortium, but they also had some suggestions for improvement.
More specifically, the participants had some remarks to make regarding the role of the mentor. They pointed out that it’s essential that mentors are also actively teaching and in contact with a class, while they should also be financially compensated adequately for their role. When it comes to the role of the new teacher, they suggested that the induction programme should be mandatory. Finally, another point that was made, was that professional advancement should be evaluated not only by points, but also by the type of teacher in the classroom.
The seminar in Slovenia brought forward some important issues. A strong suggestion, that was also made in similar events in other countries of the project was the importance of the evaluation during both programmes, since even excellent teachers might be weak in this area. Specifically for Slovenia, the teacher’s age was highlighted as an issue, while another suggestion was to implement the materials developed by LOOP as soon as possible. Such events help improve project results and ensure that the impact on the teacher’s career is overall positive.
To read more on the first Policy Brief, visit the link below:

https://empowering-teachers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Policy_brief_1_D4.1_10052.pdf

A Seminar for the presentation of the Policy Report on the Current Panorama of Education Systems: challenges and opportunities for a new approach to the teaching career, was held on July 1, 2022, in the Auditorium of the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon, under the coordination of the DGAE and with the participation of the UL Institute of Education and Casa do Professor.

The event was attended by 30 stakeholders who, throughout the interventions, reflected on the proposed policy recommendations contained in the Report coordinated by the Casa do Professor.

The seminar’s first topic was reflection upon the supervision paradigm. The discussion then centered on the requirements for the generalization of induction programmes based on mentoring, as well as the essential conditions for the implementation of the above. Finally, the context of articulation between initial and continuous training was discussed, as well as the needs of schools regarding that.

To read more on the first Policy Brief, visit the link below:

https://empowering-teachers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Policy_brief_1_D4.1_10052.pdf

The first LOOP Greek Policy Seminar, in which was presented the LOOP Policy Brief 1, held on  July 8, 2022 at Cotsen Hall, Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies, Athens. The presentation of the policy brief took place in the context of a broader round table entitled “Next Generation Europe” which was attended by participants in person and remotely. The round table was attended by 50 stakeholders in-person and 70 ones virtually. Among the participants were Alexandros Koptsis, General Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Ioannis Antoniou, President of the IEP and Michael Teutsch, head of unit, schools and multilingualism, directorate-general for education, youth, sport and culture of the European Commission.

The opinions and the recommendations of participants on findings included in the Policy Brief 1 are the followings:

The participants found the recommendations concerning the three dimensions that constitute the scope of this Policy Brief absolutely adequate, namely Teachers’ Career, Induction Programmes and Mentors’ Capacity Programmes. They noticed the high relevance of these recommendations and their completeness.

In principle, participants found the overall design and structure of LOOP very concrete and the focus on the three dimensions very important and accurate. Particularly important for the participants was the correlation between the inductive and mentoring programme and the active role of school directors in this prosses.

Participants acknowledged the positive impact that the piloting of the inductive and mentors programme can have in a first level and the subsequent adoption by the state of desirable, appropriate and tested policies related to teachers’ careers, induction and mentoring porgrammes. The participants stressed the importance of the 3nd dimension (Mentors’ Capacity Programmes) and its potential positive impact, since in Greece there are only informal forms of mentoring and it is very important, as they pointed out, on the occasion that the new law (law 4823/2021) come in force, Mentor Programmes must take a systematic formal form in which experienced teachers and school directors will have an important role to play.

As far as the political approval and Implementation After Loop Experimentation is concerned,  it was very important that the meeting was attended, among others, by the Secretary General of the Greek Ministry of Education, who expressed an interest in being  fully informed about the LOOP programme so that critical aspects of it could be examined and adopted.

To read more on the first Policy Brief, visit the link below:

https://empowering-teachers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Policy_brief_1_D4.1_10052.pdf

POLICY BRIEF on the landscapes of education systems: challenges and opportunities for a new approach to the teaching career

The LOOP project aims to contribute to the improvement of the teaching career by rethinking its structure and progression options as well as to empower teachers to know how to enhance their professional development.

The LOOP document published here contains an analysis of teaching careers in the different consortium countries (Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Germany, Greece and Slovenia), and a characterisation of formal and informal teacher induction practices as well as teacher mentoring programmes.

In most European countries, teachers experience great professional instability, face increasingly challenging audiences, complain about lack of resources and recognition, as well as excessive tasks, many of them of administrative nature. On the other hand, there is a small number of young teachers (under 30 constitute around 10% of the teaching population, on average in OECD countries) who express interest in the profession.

The Policy Brief outlines a set of recommendations, signed off by the LOOP Policy-Working Group, which is intended as a roadmap along a new structure for the teaching career. The ambition is to enable it to become a reference in the design of new educational policies and their permanent updating in a society characterised by constant dynamism. The Policy-Working Group, created within the framework of the project, is a body that guarantees the successive adaptation of LOOP’s results to the interests of its target groups. The majority of its members are public authorities, researchers and partners with strong experience in experimentation and evaluation of the impact of new educational policies.

In this first Policy Brief, a proposal is made to review the teaching careers in the different countries of the partnership, with a view to valuing them and effectively increasing their attractiveness at a time when there are serious difficulties in finding new teaching professionals.

One of the recommendations identified in this publication concerns the urgent provision of support to teachers who are at the beginning of their professional activities, through the possibility of applying for a structured induction programme, supported by more experienced peers, benefiting, for this, from specific training and a decrease of the working hours.

Thus, it is urgent to retain and motivate new professionals by reconsidering the support provided to teachers, through access to an induction programme supported by mentoring, provided by experienced teachers, from the same school or subject group. It is also recommended that these mentors are trained to adopt a collaborative and constructive attitude in different dimensions of the teaching professional activity, such as bureaucratic-administrative, affective-emotional, sociocultural and didactic-pedagogical.

Thus, it is understood that it is imperative to create new career opportunities, through the valorisation of pedagogical functions of special importance, including those that can be performed by teacher mentors, with benefits at the level of their progression and the right to a shorter working hours adapted to their functions.

Find the full report here: https://empowering-teachers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Policy_brief_1_D4.1_10052.pdf

Here you can find information on project publications, such as the comparative report and the e-catalogue, the co-design sessions, project activities and meetings, as well as the growth of the LOOP network.

Find the newsletter here: https://empowering-teachers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Loop-newsletter-HR.pdf

The Induction Programme for new teachers and the Mentor Capacity Programme developed in the scope of the LOOP project – Empowering teacher’s personal, professional and social continuous development through innovative peer-induction programmes are in the final design phase and during the summer will be ready to be tested during the 2022/2023 school year in Portugal, Greece, Spain, Slovenia, Germany, Italy and Croatia.

On the 6^th of June 2022, it took place in Portugal, at the DGAE premises, the co-design sessions that joint the efforts between DGAE, INOVA+ and Casa do Professor with professionals that are working in the field, namely 30 teachers (new and experienced), as well as 14 headmasters, to respond to their expectations and ambitions regarding the progress in the teaching career.

In Portugal, it is expected to have the Accreditation of the Mentor Capacity Programme so that experienced teachers besides the access to new knowledge and improve their skills can benefit from credits for career progression. It will start in November 2022 in a b-learning format.

The Portuguese teachers are aware that the pilot of the Induction Programme for new teachers will start in January 2023 with an experimental and a control group that will play a key role for 6 months to validate the tools and the structure of the programme. However, during the first term of the school year, new teachers will participate in workshops to familiarise themselves with the programme.

We are now finalizing both programmes to prepare the ground for the piloting after the summer break. Teachers and headmasters are aware that they need to have considerable time to dedicate to the LOOP activities during the whole school year.

We are happy to announce that LOOP project is gaining support by Public Authorities outside the partnership. This milestone is achieved through the Croatian public authorities, and more specifically the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education. 

The support of the Croatian Ministry comes in the form of appointing contact persons and representatives, who were actively involved in project outputs. More specifically, a contact person was appointed from the Directorate for Support and Improvement of the Education System – Service for European Union Programs and Projects, who contributed to the first Work Package by providing feedback and offering additional resources. Ministry representatives were also in attendance in the project’s 2^nd Transnational Meeting in the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, as well as in the Policy Making Workshop. Those experienced professionals offered an objective perspective and expert knowledge on induction programmes based on mentoring, as well as suggestions for improvement based on their own experience from Croatia’s national educational system.  

The involvement of the highest national body related to the project’s topic is undoubtedly an achievement of high importance that will help LOOP not only to better disseminate the project’s results, but also to achieve higher quality outputs with even bigger impact. 

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According to the National report of Slovenia, the majority of teachers who took part in the survey, replied that they participated in some form of an induction programme when they started their professional careers, while also receiving help from more experienced mentors or colleagues. The induction programmes were more focused on the pedagogical and didactical aspects of the teaching profession rather than the knowledge on the professional field. Inexperienced teachers highlighted the practical exchanges with their more experienced colleagues which was the most helpful aspect of the programme. On the other hand, emotional and socio-cultural aspects are briefly addressed, while the administrative duties were not addressed in a mention-worthy extent.

Find the full national report here.

According to the National report of Germany, head teachers and experienced teachers mentioned they felt that they were not well prepared in their initial training on the didactic-pedagogical level. According to this research, new teachers need support in class management, teaching methods and sharing experiences and knowledge on specific subjects. For this matter, a mentorship program is important, even though the interviewed teachers do not consider mentoring full time, because mentoring will disconnect them from their practice and their colleagues.

Find the full national report here.