The most important needs and challenges our organisation is currently facing and how can it be improved to benefit its learners

Our school has challenges in the three areas of sustainable development: social, cultural and ecological sustainability. In addition, the challenges are the low level of IT skills and reduced literacy.

The weakened level of social sustainable development was reflected in the School Health Survey 2021, according to which there is room for improvement in the well-being of children and young people in Lohja. For example, some of the pupils do not do any physical activity at all or eat breakfast. Also loneliness has been a rising trend.

Monthly well-being classes with changing themes are organized in our school. The aim is to increase physical activity also during school days. Still, we need more methods to influence things.

Social sustainability also includes the economic equality of families. Finland is still relatively equal regarding the economic status of families, but inequality is increasing. With the help of the projects we want to give opportunities for those in a weaker economic position.

Lohja municipality's immigrant education (Preparatory Education) is centralized in Laurentius School.  A large number of the pupils stay in our school also after the preparatory class, because the school also has separate Finnish as a second language (S2) teachers. One of the biggest challenges in cultural sustainable development is to increase our understanding of real intercultural inclusion, where other languages ​​and cultures are not only tolerated or accepted or where different cultures are celebrated only on special holidays and events, but a deeper understanding is taught and learned in daily interactions, promoting equality, respect, acceptance and well-being in global society. Another challenge is the lack of interest in international education among the teachers.

Young people's ignorance of the impact of their own choices on nature is the challenge of ecological sustainability. Nowadays everything is easily available, so there’s not necessarily any interest in directing thoughts to the well-being of nature. We feel a great need to develop knowledge of ecological sustainable development in our school and that's why a Sustainable Development Working Group is established. But all concrete help and support is necessary.

There is a group of teachers in our school interested in IT, but otherwise the implementation of IT possibilities is dependent from the teacher's own hobby and competence. Some teachers feel that they do not have the necessary IT skills. At our school “Digital Tutor” -teachers and “Digi Agents” -pupils work to support teachers, but this is not enough.

With the help of the project, we would like to inspire and to encourage all teachers to use the possibilities of the digital world. The project offers a practical opportunity to improve digital skills. Every pupil in our school has the opportunity to use a Chromebook, the devices are available to everyone but unfortunately pupils’ digital literacy is not yet at the desired level. Playing games and using social media is not a problem, but utilization of the digitality is not yet at the level required by the future. With the help of the project, we would like to strengthen the development of pupils’ digital skills. However, managing IT skills is useless without fluent reading skill and especially media literacy. We want to arouse pupils' interest in reading and develops their media literacy.

In our school, digitalization has been well received in special education as a great opportunity for e.g. teaching for differentiation. The possibilities for upward differentiation are also considerable. The role of the school is to provide opportunities to everyone regardless of the socio-economic background. Our school is also an educational institution for preparatory education and we must also take care of the development of the digital and reading skills of immigrant pupils.

According to studies (e.g. Pisa), literacy has been declining in recent years. Reading and social media plus digital devices compete with each other for time. What we want is to restore reading and thereby promote literacy.

 OBJECTIVES

Improving mental and physical well-being and thus commitment to the school community

Being stuck in front of the cell phone or mental nausea are often behind of not eating or eating poorly and not doing any kind of physical exercise. The idea is that those pupils who we would get interested and excited about the project, would be out of their own stubborn ways for even a moment. Active tinkering has a positive effect on eating, allowing the young person to be more active in exercise as well.

Getting to know new people can be a challenge for a young person, in which case loneliness is the main companion for him or her. With the help of the projects, one can make new friends, learn new skills for the future and commit to society. With the aforementioned, we can potentially also influence young people's understanding of how they can influence their own future and thus potentially to break the inheritance of the risk of exclusion from one generation to another. One goal of the projects is to get young people to work together despite their backgrounds, so they can feel they are equal actors.

Inclusive school and active cultural exchange

The goal is to get pupils integrated into the school community, regardless of culture and background. We’d like to see pupils' friend circles mix more. At the moment immigrant pupils and special needs pupils are often mainly in their own groups. The goal is also to make the school's atmosphere accepting towards everyone.

In intercultural meetings pupils can exchange views and encourage each other. During these meetings we learn to appreciate and understand our own culture and that of others. We encourage pupils to study foreign languages ​​and teachers to internationalize.Working together through games, projects, clubs and activities opens up opportunities to get to know others in your own school and on an international level. All pupils have equal opportunities to participate.

 Inculcating ecological sustainability in young people's thinking and actions.

Sustainable development, biodiversity, recycling, energy sources and littering are discussed in the Natural Sciences. Various projects support and expand the teaching of natural science and the understanding of things learned in class.

During the mobilities, pupils get to see concrete differences in recycling and the consequences of not recycling. The effects of littering will also come visible during the mobilities. There are countries where wind power produces electricity diligently, in another country, on the other hand, they rely on nuclear power. These are things that are talked about a lot in the media as well, and the goal is to get a little comparison of different energy sources in different countries. If there are countries close to Finland in our projects, our goal is to use means of transportation other than airplanes. In this way pupils will get an idea of ​​how they can influence the environment without losing experiences. We are also hoping to get a project related to Nature, in which we could highlight and compare these issues.

Improving the practical IT skills of pupils and teachers

In the future, it will be increasingly important that everyone has good IT skills.  More and more services are electronic. In Erasmus projects, teachers and pupils learn to use different programs together. With the digital devices the skills spread even to those homes that do not yet have devices or a working internet connection.

We want to strengthen pupils' use of practical IT skills (Office tools, GSE, various applications, etc.) Virtual meetings and contacts abroad are also vital in the business world. Our goal is to accustom the pupils to the future working life skills and give teachers confidence in using the computer.

Developing children's and young people's enjoyment of reading and reading skills as well as multi-literacy skills

The ongoing “Lohja lukee 2” -Project (Lohja reads 2 Project) at our school tries to stop the observed negative development in reading skills. We have Literacy coordinators in our school, these coordinators also cooperate with early childhood education and the library. We would like to share improving literacy experiences internationally. Through fluent and comprehensible reading, it is possible to develop multi-literacy, which is a prerequisite for functioning in today's society. In international projects we can combine the goals of literacy and different fields of knowledge.