2 nd TPM and 1 st Consensus Conference of the ESW project in Brescia, Italy

To gain more knowledge on the English UTC system all partners of the ESW project met for their 2 nd TPM in Brescia, Italy, at 8 th of May this year.

Here they discussed about the progress of the project reached so far and the most important steps for the future in order to reach the underlying goals of
the project. Especially the guidelines about the possibility of an Europeanization of the UTC system and its implementation in other European countries like Italy, Spain and Germany have been presented and discussed intensively on this occasion.

On May 9th, the 1st Consensus Conference took place at the Catholic University of ‘Sacro Cuore’, located in the heart of Brescia. This Consensus Conference represents an important moment to read, discuss and validate the UTCs Transferability Guidelines with the support of experts and relevant
stakeholders.

The consensus conference was divided into two parts:

• during the morning the ESW project and the UTC Warrington model were presented; Italian education and training experts intervened to discuss the evolution of organizational models in the VET system
• In the afternoon the participants worked in thematic workshops to discuss in detail and validate the guidelines on the transferability model of the UTCs.

The workshops focused on the following topics:

• Times, spaces and methods of grouping: In this workshop, stakeholders discussed how UTCs organize school time and learning spaces and how they form and manage class groups.
• Staff and organizational model: participants agreed that hiring staff with the right characteristics and setting up an organizational model is essential to create a favourable learning environment for students. The working group discussed on the variables that characterize the English context and on what can be borrowed from this experience.
• The curriculum and the PBL method: the workgroup had the purpose of discussing how to create a curriculum that integrates professional and socio-emotional skills as well as identifying the fundamental variables to replicate teaching models based on ‘learning by doing’, more specifically Project Based Learning.
• Evaluation: the last group discussed about the evaluation system and how to organize an efficient learning assessment model that takes into consideration hard and soft skills as well as experiences outside the school context and that take on the characteristics of an
  evaluation formative ‘that is really useful to those who receive it.