TThere are many months of summer holidays and the losers are the students in disadvantaged conditions. For them, who have fewer tools and resources in the family, the risk of a loss of learning (learning loss) is concrete. How will they return to school after three months without educational stimuli? Educational archipelagothe program of Save the Children and the Agnelli Foundation for the recovery and maintenance of basic skills during the summer, aims to give an answer. Even in aperspective of prevention of early school leaving.
An image of the previous edition of Arcipelago Educativo in Naples.
This year, for the fourth time, the program restarts: 540 primary and lower secondary school children are involved, in 38 schools in eight cities: Turin, Milan, Venice-Marghera, Aprilia (LT), Brindisi, Naples, Rosarno (RC) and Palermo. Obviously, it is not a question of putting them to do their homework, quiet and good. Rather, to offer them fun educational activities, in groups, often outside the schools and to discover the local area. And so mathematics is learned with team sports, dominoes are used for fractions. The toponymy of the neighborhood becomes a way to study history or geography, and art is learned live, looking at one’s own city with a new eye. For flora and fauna, who knows what will be found in city parks.
The method works: the independent impact assessment on the 2022 edition showed that the children of Arcipelago Educativo not only did not lose the learning acquired during the summer, but they had an estimated progress of 2 months in Mathematics and 3.5 months in Italian. So not an extemporaneous activity but an experience that remains.
Educational archipelago: families involved
Also important is the transversal work of collaboration with the associations present in the area, with the scholastic institutions and above all with the families. The children are selected by the schools among the most fragile, an individual path is built for each of them and the family participates directly, by signing a co-responsibility pact.
It should be added that Arcipelago Educativo, in addition to directly involving the 38 schools, has also become a model that other schools are adopting on their own, thanks to a methodological manual, a webinar in which 400 teachers and educators have already participated, and a platform from which educational resources can be drawn. In Naples, all 5 including the Pianura district have adopted the projectdeveloping it independently.
“Many children will spend the summer in their neighborhood, without being able to take vacations,” he says Raffaella Milan, director of Save the Children’s Italy programmes. «Arcipelago Educativo allows them to spend a time full of opportunities. It would be an experience to spread throughout Italyin the areas most at risk, to maintain a presence in schools that is open all year round”.
«The impact assessment gave a result that exceeded expectations“, points out Andrea Gavosto, director of the Agnelli Foundation, «confirming not only to strengthen basic knowledge and skills, but also to support the motivation and interest of young people. All this encourages us to continue and to improve the proposal».
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