A Workshop on Whole School Model was organised in Istanbul on 25-27 June 2019 within the scope of the European Union – Council of Europe Joint Project on Strengthening Democratic Culture in Basic Education. Around 140 people participated in the Workshop, which aimed to focus on and discuss the main elements of a democratic school and the whole school model to be developed under the Project and to increase the awareness of the practitioners from pilot schools, who will deal with the pilot implementation of the Whole School Model, about the Project and the whole school model. The participants included primary education teachers and school principals from the pilot schools of the Project, academicians, representatives of parent-teacher associations of certain pilot schools, and representatives from the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Turkey (MoNE), the Council of Europe (CoE), relevant public institutions, and civil society.
The workshop started with the opening remarks and an overview of the Project provided by Dr Gülderen Özdemir, Head of R&D and Projects Department of the MoNE, Ms Aslıhan Özdemir, Project Manager at the CoE, and Ms Nihal Gözüyaşlı, Project Coordinator at the MoNE. Then, the Council of Europe consultants delivered their presentations on Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, main elements of the whole school model, and the draft whole school model that has been developed by the Democratic School Culture Working Group of the Project.
On the second day of the workshop, the participants were divided into three groups (preschool, primary school, and middle school) to go through the main areas of the draft whole school model and to match them with the descriptors of competences for democratic culture. The groups then focused on the possible practices/activities that can be implemented in their schools regarding these descriptors.
The participants continued to work in the same groups on the last day of the Workshop to come up with ideas on what the logo and slogan of the Project should be. After these brainstorming sessions, the Workshop ended with an intervention by Mr Michael Ingledow, Head of the CoE Programme Office in Ankara, and presentation of the results of the groups by the consultants that acted as group moderators.
The whole school model to be developed in the end of this process is planned to be implemented during the 2019-2020 school year in the 110 pilot schools in Adana, Aydın, Burdur, Çanakkale, Iğdır, Kars, Muğla, Sinop, Sivas, and Yozgat.
