Introduction to Nordplus Junior
Nordplus Junior gives contributions to school’s strategic quality work through partnerships between schools in the Nordic and Baltic countries. All activities aim at strengthening and developing collaboration and includes everything from minor ventures with a focus on the process and the actual exchange of experiences, to major development projects with the aim of developing new ideas, methods and ways of working. It may also include exchanges of individual participants – for example continuing professional development for teachers and staff, or transnational pupil cooperation closely connected to curricula in order to enhance student achievement.
Target groups for the programme are kindergartens/preschools, primary schools, lower and upper secondary schools, vocational schools and apprentice programmes, and other organisations within the educational field.
Teachers and staff receive an opportunity to strengthen their professionalism and work skills through experience sharing. It provides new perspectives and increased understanding for other ways of teaching, and therefore a unique chance to reflect on one’s own professional practice. It also aims at giving knowledge to develop methodology and pedagogical tools in order to fulfil the pupils’ possibilities of reaching curriculum objectives. At the same time, staff acquires an international perspective which may have a direct effect on schools’ quality assurance.
Pupils get an opportunity to strengthen their knowledge and abilities through cooperation with other people in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Meeting other cultures and ways of thinking, make pupils more mature and independent; they widen their horizons and deepen their awareness about various subjects, the surrounding world and themselves.
All projects should originate in the development needs of the participating institutions, as well as in each country’s curricula and regulatory documents.
Examples of themes and areas for collaboration within Nordplus Junior could be: entrepreneurship, inclusive education, digitalization (ICT), promoting knowledge of Nordic and Baltic culture, democracy, environment and sustainable development, integration, education and employment, developing knowledge about the Nordic and Baltic languages, all school subjects e.g. mathematics and social sciences, as well as enhancing basic skills such as literacy.