The ‘Raising the Achievement of All Learners in Inclusive Education’ project (2014–2017) will conclude with a conference on 5–7 April 2017 in Malta, under the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference will run in parallel with the Agency bi-annual meeting of ministerial representatives from 30 member countries, who will join the conference’s plenary sessions.
The conference aims to share and discuss the findings of the Raising Achievement project regarding:
- the pedagogical strategies and leadership approaches that are effective in providing equitable opportunities for all learners in their local communities;
- the role of collaborative practice between all stakeholders in raising the achievement of all learners.
Together with Agency country representatives, this international conference will involve approximately 180 participants, including school leaders, researchers, teachers, parents and learners, as well as local and national policy-makers. Key stakeholders will include members of the three Learning Communities (LCs) from Italy, Poland and UK (Scotland), who have played a vital role by sharing their on-going developments in policy and practice during the project.
Other project participants – primarily researchers and school leaders from member countries – will join the LCs in interactive workshops during the conference.
The workshops will involve presentations from the LCs on their work, focusing specifically on the areas of pedagogy, leadership and collaboration. Project participants will provide further examples from their countries to support discussion and identify key issues. In addition, learners – the end users of inclusive education – will be actively involved in a separate interactive workshop. This will focus on what achievement and success mean for the learners, as well as what really works in supporting their learning in inclusive settings.
During the conference, the participants will focus on ways to raise achievement and reduce inequalities in education through innovative and collaborative approaches that support the development of inclusive values and practice for all learners and school and community stakeholders. The outcomes of the discussions and information drawn from the conference will be used in the planned project outputs. These will be published later in 2017, in order to support work to raise the achievement of all learners.