After a short introduction about the necessity of the involvement of parents and students in daily school life (legal and research basics and social context) the main features of the OSD project were outlined and the project website has been presented. The actual version of the Training Framework was presented by showing the training framework webpage. The content of each section and how teachers could use it has been explained.

Within an interactive ice-breaker we wanted to challenge the participants by some provocative statements to get to know something about their attitudes, experience and preconceptions related to parents, migrants, child’s rights etc. In the next part of the workshop we used flipcharts for brainstorming and word cloud about: activities, social environment, education, school community, visions and values, teacher trainings, spaces, language (including digital), information and training. This part was followed by a short overview of examples of good practice and inspiring practices.

After a short introduction where the project was presented, the trainers referred about their experiences of intercultural nature and presented some empirical data. The results of the presentation show the acute need for action and the timeliness of the OSD project. There was a very lively discussion in which many options for the integration of parents with a migration background were proposed. A special proposal was the “Festival of Cultures”, which is already celebrated at two schools at regular intervals. For this purpose, several stalls will be set up to introduce the cultures of children and young people with a migrant background. Here, the trainers gave the hint that the concept can also be extended. In support of the trainers it was referred to the so-called third places in education, i.e. in addition professional staff rooms could also be provided for events, in case there is no other space in the school. The last activity was carried out with the Lego Serious play. The material was used to create life-like situations. Participants were confronted with the task to present a situation known to them, in which the roles of teachers, parents and children with a migration background were represented.

Ms Evangelia Boufardea presented the main aims of the projects as well the current implementation phase of the project. The majority of attendants were teachers and school counselors and found the project very interesting and the topic extremely current.

OSD 3^rd implementation workshop had a twofold aim:

• On the one hand present the training framework of the project at its current status, highlighting the importance of the 1^st, reflective phase, so as to map the needs of the learning environment and of the educator’s preconceptions and attitude and decide on the process, milestones and adaptations of framework implementation.
• On the other elaborate on the activities each educator wishes to implement, realize the spectrum of those available in the framework and adapt those already used, so as to meet the needs of migrant/ refugee parents.

To this end participants of several schools and NGOs targeting migrants and refugees were invited to a 4 hours workshop; some of them were newly comers, some others had participated in focus group workshop and some others to the 1^st implementation phase workshop.

In parallel with OSD training framework the basic outline and certain activities of two thematically close projects were presented; PISEA project (www.pisea.ea) aiming at strengthening educators’ intercultural competences and TEC project (http://www.enquiring-project.eu) focusing on the support of teachers and students, when engaging in difficult ethical conversations about identity, religions and beliefs, democratic values, diversity, in order to establish a firm foundation for inclusive and tolerant schools and classrooms.

Workshop participants split in group activities; institutional changes and personal redefinitions, as critical parts of schools’ and educators’ journey to parental engagement.

Participants’ feedback was very positive, they found both the reflective and the hands on activities’ part well designed and fit for purpose and expressed their intention to follow up with their schools within the next weeks.

Under this perspective it was handed to them, and then sent with all power point presentations, the simplified version of their school’s action plan, which were asked to fill in and update accordingly.

Within the next weeks an activity template will be circulated asking to record the activities they have implemented at school, with the view to assigning to migrant / refugee parents a more meaningful and active role in school life and at the same time assessing the training framework impact per se at a long term basis.

A step forward: an activity particularly relevant to making links between the different generations of rights (civil/political and social/economic/cultural rights), the access/ non access to them, the idea of empathy and putting yourself to the shoes of another person.

At the beginning all the workshop attendants introduced themselves and explained the reason they wanted to participate in OSD workshop. The first part of the workshop included a brief description and overview of the project

• Purpose of the workshop
• Open School Doors Learning Outcomes
• Introduction to the stage of the Open School Doors learning cycle

Then, participants were asked to reflect about the schools as contexts for parental engagement with newly arrived families and later the created and shared artefacts to reflect on realities of parental engagement in their own contexts. The next step was to explore Open School Doors recommendations and evaluate their current practice in light of Open School Door recommendations.

Afterwards, participants were divided in two groups for making an experiment with two proposed activities (a) Spaces and Places and (b)Cultures and communities.

Finally, the participants were asked to identify priorities for change and build an action plan according to OSD principles and their own context.

At the end of the workshop a fruitful discussion was held among the participants and organizers which enabled OSD team to learn a lot from practitioners working out in the field.

In a short introduction, Prof. Dr. Köhler presented the key findings from the first phase of the project. Subsequently, Ms. Haider continued the training with practical exercises. Here, the content from the online training program has been integrated. The aspect of welcome culture was discussed in detail. The teachers worked in small groups and produced posters about language, information, rooms, external support, information/ training. You can see the results in the following pictures.

In the second part of the training was discussed about jointly events which have already been implemented in the school and which can be extended in the future. One important finding during this training phase was the following: The best time to start cooperation between parents with migration background and teachers is at the „Day of the Open House“. Here, the children and youth visit the school together with their parents to find out about the educational offers. If this already results in open-hearted and friendly interaction, this can significantly influence the future cooperation. To support the welcome stage for the parents at the school, the teachers would like to invite interpreters to the open house in the future so that language barriers can be reduced.
The workshop was very lively and varied. The previous experience of the teachers enriched the work in the training phases, so that many very good results could be presented. The trainees then commented that they wanted more practical tips to try out at school. The coaches were able to provide a positive outlookon these wishes by inviting the participants to Dresden for the second workshop. In January 2019 concrete practical examples will be passed on to the participants in further workshops.

The first part of the workshop was a brief description of the project and presentation of the results of literature review and focus groups across Europe. Mrs Evangelia Boufardea, from CTI “Diophantus”, introduced participants in the OSD philosophy and aims presenting the project and the recommendations for the schools/school leaders/teachers according to user needs’ analysis report. Afterwards, Mrs Anna Zoakou, from Ellinogermaniki Agogi, presented the online Open School Doors Training Programme. She explained the content of each section and how could they could go through it; the main idea was to provide an overview of the training materials, in a brief but yet quite detailed manner, with the view to familiarizing participants with its rationale and didactic potential.

The next step was to engage participants to make an artifact which represented how they perceive the parental engagement with newly arrived people in their school. The participants desired to be in one team and cooperated and made a really interesting construction. They presented their artifact and the idea was very intriguing and inspiring despite the simplicity of the construction.

The second part of the workshop was totally hands on and for this reason very interesting for the participants. Mrs Aliki Giannakopoulou, from Ellinogermaniki Agogi, involved participants in a series of activities in order to show them, that there are several ways to approach people who do not speak the same language with you. Two activities took place a) Puzzle and b) Multisensory experience. Both activities intrigued participants and they felt excited.

Participants’ feedback was very positive for the workshop and they are looking forward more inspiring activities from us for applying them in the next school year in their school.

Indicative pictures from the workshop follow:

Here you can see the video where participants explain their construction (the video is temporarily available only in Greek).

The focus group analysed  the current status of parental involvement/engagement that greatly differ from country to country, but still tried to find the common elements, listed barriers and challenges for migrant parents in that can have an effect on their engagement in their children’s school, discussed their view on teachers’ role in making parents more engaged with their children’s school and the desirable relationship between organised parents and teachers in general as it should form the basis of the involvement of those not currently engaged to avoid alienating those already active. There was a strong emphasis on utilising the relationship between school (teachers and parent leaders) and parents in general for supporting the lifelong learning of parents – both for better parenting and their own personal development. There is an agreement that parental engagement should be considered and promoted as an active educator’s role and active citizenship.

Mrs Boufardea Evangelia (mpoufard@westgate.gr) from CTI “DIOPHANTUS” and Mrs Zoakou Anna (azoakou@ea.gr) and Mr. Zygouritsas Nikos (zygouritsas@ea.gr) from the Ellingermaniki Agogi were responsible for the coordination and organization of the workshop. Several educators (teachers, school managers, etc.), parents (migrant background), psychologists, sociologists and NGO executives participated in the workshop, to exchange views and experiences to identify the problems that need to be overcome and involving parents (migrants / refugees) more actively in school issues and in education of their children. The results of the workshop will be exploited by the project team to develop an appropriate training framework for teachers with immigrant / refugee pupils.

The project will provide teachers with integrated training aiming at establishing effective co-operation between teachers and parents, demanding equal parents’ participation in decision-making and school development processes taking into account migrant/refugee parents’ particular cultural and socio-educational profile.