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First FIESTA Conference – ‘Understanding and Managing Transition’
The FIESTA (Facilitating Inclusive Education and Supporting the Transition Agenda) network held its first Conference in Katerini, Greece on 30 November 2012. The conference focus was on understanding and managing periods of transition for children with additional educational needs. The overarching themes included transition, inclusion and collaborative working. The Conference examined the initial findings from the initial FIESTA research program to see how the project and its network could support best practice in promoting inclusion for students with specific learning needs at key periods of transition in their lives. It also aimed to promote awareness of the needs of parents, families, teachers and schools in supporting rights-based inclusion in learning strategies.
Hosted by the Greek partner organization, Platon School, the FIESTA partner organizations from eight European countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania, Scotland, Spain) attended. Delegates from other countries were also present, including Germany, England and the United States. In total 145 participants attended, including teachers, counselors, parents and researchers.
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Fiesta Research Programme
The University of Edinburgh (UoE) team, leader of the Research work package (WP2) and in collaboration with all partners delivered a literature review that established:- the conceptual and cross-cultural basis of the FIESTA project,
- explored terminology and definitions of inclusion, integrated working and transition utilised in the partner countries,
- established key hypotheses concerning best practice that will be tested in the project survey and
- developed key qualitative questions to be examined in the focus groups.
Following the completion of the literature review, we developed a research strategy paper that set out clear guidelines for research and data collection, specified our sample’s size and composition and set out a timetable for the research process, which will target professionals, parents and children. Quantitative and qualitative research instruments based on the hypotheses and questions established by the literature review were subsequently developed with the guidance of the UoE team and were discussed with and approved by the partnership. The project meeting in Katerini was used to resolve issues around the translatability of context-specific questions and specialist terminology used in the developed research instruments across the countries represented in the partnership and to finalise the quantitative questionnaire structure.
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Why not join the network or sign up to learn more?
Contact project manager Kate Kearney: kkearney@enableireland.ie
Website: www.fiesta-project.eu
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