Glossary

‘Services and activities intended to assist individuals of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers’ (UNESCO-IBE, Glossary of Curriculum Terminology).

In schools, the practice is used to:

… support students in their choice of education and career path. Education and career guidance is provided by in-school guidance/counselling services and it may be taught in the classroom as a subject/topic which forms part of the compulsory curriculum. Guidance seeks to provide students with information as well as to develop the decision-making and other skills important in managing their own educational or career choices. Education and career guidance may also include psycho-educational work or counselling to help students in their progression through school, particularly for students at risk of leaving education early. Extra support is often provided at times of transition between the stages of education or when transferring to other pathways or tracks. Guidance may be complemented by extra-curricular activities and supported by external partners (e.g. for the provision of work experience, etc.) (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Cedefop, 2014, p. 139).

Child-friendly schools adopt a rights-based, multi-sectoral approach, concerned with the whole child. According to UNICEF:

Schools should operate in the best interests of the child. Educational environments must be safe, healthy and protective, endowed with trained teachers, adequate resources and appropriate physical, emotional and social conditions for learning. Within them, children’s rights must be protected and their voices must be heard. Learning environments must be a haven for children to learn and grow, with innate respect for their identities and varied needs. The CFS model promotes inclusiveness, gender-sensitivity, tolerance, dignity and personal empowerment (UNESCO/European Agency, no date).

Captions that can be selected to be visible or not versus captions that are visible by default.

‘Cloud services are delivered via the Internet from … locations remote from the end user and their institution’ (UNESCO IITE, 2010, p. 2).

Cross-sectoral policies (e.g. for youth) should be: ‘formulated and implemented with the participation of the authorities in charge of all important domains for the life of young people’ (European Commission, 2018c).

Co-teaching or team teaching, also known as collaborative teaching, is a teaching practice to address the diversity of learners and needs in the classroom. It takes place when two (or more) educators work together to plan, organise, instruct and make assessments on the same groups of learners, sharing the same classroom.

In a co-teaching setting, the teachers are considered equally responsible and accountable for the classroom. Co-teaching is often implemented with general and special education teachers paired together as part of an initiative to create a more inclusive classroom.

Working together may include: one teach, one observe; one teach, one assist; station teaching, parallel teaching, alternate teaching; team teaching.

(For more information on these, see Understood, no date).

Opposed to individual learning, collaborative learning develops a community-centred approach. It is a recent trend in human learning and cognition that emphasises participation, joint meaning-making, discourse and dialogue. It is characterised by collaboration, creative processes and the use of new technology.

See ‘Co-teaching / team-teaching’.

Community-based approach motivates women, girls, boys and men in the community to participate in a process which allows them to express their needs and to decide their own future with a view to their empowerment. It requires recognition that they are active participants in decision-making. It also seeks to understand the community’s concerns and priorities, mobilizing community members and engaging them in protection and programming (Defined Term, no date).

Community-based learning refers to a wide variety of instructional methods and programs that educators use to connect what is being taught in schools to their surrounding communities, including local institutions, history, literature, cultural heritage, and natural environments. Community-based learning is also motivated by the belief that all communities have intrinsic educational assets and resources that educators can use to enhance learning experiences for students. …

By using the “community as a classroom,” advocates would argue, teachers can improve knowledge retention, skill acquisition, and preparation for adult life because students can be given more opportunities apply learning in practical, real-life settings.

Approaches include: instructional connections; community integration; community participation; citizen action (‘community-based learning’ in the Glossary of Education Reform).
 

Community-based resources refer to extra-curricular activities, after-school programmes, intervention-based programmes and other external support services in the community that target specific learners, their families and/or teachers. They might include childcare facilities/services, counselling, mental healthcare, other health services and therapeutic/educational interventions (e.g. speech and language therapy), career support services, special services, etc. (European Agency, 2019a).

Compensatory approaches or policy initiatives are those that ‘address the inability of legislation and/or provision to support meaningful inclusive education for all learners (for example, separate educational programmes or provision, support for failing schools, second-chance educational programmes)’ (European Agency, 2018, p. 19).

Competences:

… are conceptualised as a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes and the definition of each key competence states the knowledge, skills and attitudes relevant for it. This approach supported the definition of learning outcomes and its translation into curricula or learning programmes.

• Knowledge – facts and figures, concepts, ideas and theories which are already established … [and] support the understanding of a certain area or subject;
• Skills – ability and capacity to carry out processes and use the existing knowledge to achieve results;
• Attitudes – disposition and mind-sets to act/react to ideas, persons or situations; in the European Framework of Key Competences also including values, thoughts and beliefs.

The definition of the individual competences and their related knowledge, skills and attitudes overlap and interlock; they reinforce each other (European Commission, 2018b, p. 7).

In most European education systems, compulsory education/training starts at the beginning of primary education (ISCED 1), usually at the age of 6. In 15 education systems, attendance at last year(s) of pre-primary education, usually at the age of 5, is already compulsory. […] In most European education systems, full-time compulsory education/training lasts 9–10 years ending at the age of 15–16 (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2016, p. 3)

A framework of theories, assumptions, principles and rules. It underpins the project’s work and provides a ‘shared vision’ to guide project thinking, ensuring coherence and consistency.