My Place, My School!

Based upon the problem of the students' absenteeism, job shadowing/observation will be held in the partner instutions within the scope of the project called ‘My Place, My School’ and the applications of the other EU countries regarding the students' absenteeism problems will also be analyzed and common solutions will be developed. Besides, reduction of absenteeism, increasing school attendance, improvement of the school perspective of both the students and parents, awareness of the importance of regular attendance on the student’s social, cultural, moral development and peer learning are among the aims of our project. In addition, it has been aimed to decrease the school dropout arising from student absenteeism, increase academic success throught the town and to improve the quality of education. Our study is an orijinal, solution-oriented project. In our country, while the absence of more than half of the daily total course hourse is accepted a day, the other absences are accepted a half-day. The status of the absent students are notified to their parents by e-mail or other information tools within the same day. Furthermore, the parents informed at the end of every fifth day of absence about the condition of the student that makes a habit of absenteeism are requested to deliver the student's disability document to the school administration, if applicable. The student whose unexcused absence is exceeding five days and total absence is exceeding fifteen days is asked to attend school by informing his/her parents. The students whose unexcused absence is exceeding ten and totally thirty days, no matter what their course marks are, are considered to have failed. Apology document of the student or written statement of his/her parents regarding the absence time is delivered to school administration at least five school days following the apology day. When e-school database of our constitution is reviewed,it has been observed that there are forty students of passive absence, not attending or having left school and sixty-two students of active , namely unexcused absence stating the students who are still or likely attending the school. When the results of the survey conducted over these sixty-two active students are analyzed, it has been revealed that the underlying reasons of students’ absenteeism are due to families, schools and communities. In order to overcome this problem, despite the use of such methods as changes in the curriculum, parent visits, a teacher-guided extracurricular activities, interviews with guidance and counselling service, courses with many more visual materials, we have failed to obtain a positive result. Therefore, we are planning to go to the EU countries, often experiencing this problem and apply their different methods in our instution as possible by examining closely how they follow them. Forty staff who are effective on determining the project strategy, from different branches and among the participants of the partner instutions will attend the mobility. After the project approved by our National Agency, an executive board will be created and executive committee will be responsible for all activities and transactions related with the project management. Application forms will be created for the selection of the participants. Participants will be selected by executive board among the applications, considering the criterions that has fixed and gender equality. Contracts will be signed between the participants and partners. After clarifying programs with partners, preparatory meetings will be held with the participants; to inform about the mobility program, meetings, accommodation, cultural, and sociological structure of the partner countries. We will prepare language cards on everyday speech patterns in the language of the destination country for the participants. Visa, passport, insurance and travel arrangements will be followed by the executive board of the project in order not to have any trouble. Travel, accommodation, and guidance of the organization will be carried out in cooperation with the host partner. Participants will make observations during the activity and will report it.The report that will be created at the end of the project will be sent with the provincial directorate for national education, the district national education directorate and the other educational instutions in the town. For the dissemination of the project results, the document generated from the reports and visual records will be shared on websites of partner institutions. Participants will receive the Europass Mobility document and also certificate of participation which will be given by the host organizations. It is forseen that the project will contribute not only to the short-term professional and language development of participants, but also the improvement of the quality of education increasing academic success by means of sharing the solution offers developed as a consequence of the job shadowing/observation concerning the students’ absenteeism with the seminars and presentations that will be held in our instution and the other aducational instutions in town. It is considered the main and most important impacts will be able to seen in long-term period. Looking for a partner organization for looking for a project for training teaching staff mobility KA 1.