We’re TRYing in Romania

Between September 3 and 9, 2018, the Youth Association from Transylvania hosted a training course and a coordinators meeting within the Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnership called “TRY: non formal learning approaches and self-management practices” where 5-5-5 teachers from vocational schools of the 3 partner countries – Portugal, Poland and Romania – got an immersive 4 day long training regarding non-formal education and possibilities of including it in day to day practices in the classrooms. Then, for 1 day, the 9 coordinators of all the partner institutions, which are the VET schools, NGOs and municipalities analized the progress so far and made plans for the next steps.

The training started just one week before the new school year starts in Romania, and from Poland it either started one week earlier or 1 month ago, so all the teachers included in the training were very interested for the training as it was going to offer them new skillsets that they can implement day by day.

On the first day the teachers got to know one another and were familiarized with the project concepts and the steps done so far, basics in non-formal education, and the first phase of the study done in schools, based on which the content of this training was created. Then, in the second day, in the morning, they presented their realities in the schools including doing a study visit in the local VET School, the Zeyk Domokos Vocational School. In the afternoon many elements of delivering non formal sessions were learned experientially. On the 3rd they we continued this process and offered space for some teachers to try themselves out in delivering team-building and collaboration oriented non-formal sessions. On the last day this process has ended, feedback was offered for the 5 teams of teachers and we evaluated the training. All teachers were grateful for the possibility.

Then we organized a common excursion to the medieval town of Sighisoara, where both the teachers and the representatives of the 9 entities learned about the Saxon heritage of the town, freedom of religion and Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known and Drakula, who was born in this town.

This leisure day was followed by the coordination meeting, there everyone presented their progress and feedback regarding all the progress made so far and planned how to finalize the first 2 intelectual outputs of the project, which is a comprehensive study and a documentary regarding the VET schools.

Follow our website, www.ata-ro.eu or our page https://www.facebook.com/ata.ong/  to get updates on how this project progresses and for instructions on how to get involved in the project.