European Portfolio Certificate

For further information, go to the EPC website.

History

Steiner Waldorf schools receive European Funding

At the end of August 2008 it was announced that 12 Steiner Waldorf Schools across Europe, with five national and regional federations, ECSWE and two British accreditation organisations (ASDAN and N-OCN), have been successful in a bid for European funding under the Lifelong learning programme - COMENIUS. The funding will allow the schools to take part in a two-year project called "European Portfolio Certificate - EPC", in order to explore the design of new qualifications pathways. The Project could enhance opportunities for students in further learning and employment.

This project was initiated by the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education and the German working group on Qualifications and Outcomes together with the Potsdam Waldorf School. The project coordinator is Thilo Koch of the Potsdam Waldorf School.

The group of 12 Steiner schools come from the following 8 European Countries:

Germany:
- Waldorfschule Potsdam (coordinator)
- Rudolf Steiner Schule Bochum

Belgium:
- Hiberniaschool

Czech Republic:
- Strední skola - Waldorfské lyceum

Denmark:
- Rudolf Steinerskolen I Aarhus
- Rudolf Steiner-Skolen I Odense

England:
- Michael Hall School
- Steiner Academy Hereford

Holland:
- Rudolf Steinerschool Haarlem
- Marecollege Leiden

Norway:
- Rudolf Steinerskolen i Vestfold

Slovenia:
- Waldorfska sola Ljubljana

The partnership aims to create and implement a European Portfolio Certificate (EPC) for students who complete a Steiner Waldorf School education at the end of the secondary level, open to adaptation by other interested schools. The partnership will work on common criteria for a European Portfolio, taking into consideration the Europass framework for the transparency and transferability of qualifications and competences and the need to keep the individuality of each School locality.

The project will focus on:

• setting up common criteria for a EPC;
• creating a common folder for a EPC;
• editing guidelines for other schools interested in implementing the EPC in the future. The EPC folder will contain:
• a final report;
• certificates of portfolio work;
• the student's own selection of individual learning outcomes.

Each Portfolio Certificate could contain the following key elements:

• an abstract, by the student, of his or her portfolio work;
• a description, by the student, of how the achievements were attained;
• a self-evaluation of the student;
• an external evaluation (by a teacher or other qualified person).

Portfolio Certificates can also be issued in relation to extra-curricular activities, sport, music, IT, etc.. They are not only a summative end product, but also cornerstone of an effective formative assessment process.

This project is part of a process that has been under way for over five years among Steiner Waldorf schools, the aim of which is to translate the benefits of project work, plays, work experience, concerts, multi-language activities and many other types of non-formal learning activities that flourish in a Waldorf upper school as well as informal learning from outside formal learning into input for a leaving certificate that gains the bearer access to Higher Education, Further Education or employment.

This variety of formal, non-formal and even informal learning outcomes have not yet been adequately acknowledged by vocational and academic training institutions, since documentation of learning outcomes has usually only covered the formal part of education, and these generally without making specific learning outcomes visible. The project partners believe that the development of a competence based portfolio will be beneficial not only to their own scho1ol but also to many other schools. The former "Gold Standards" of A-Level, Abitur, Baccalaureat, Maturita etc. are increasingly being called into ques- tion (many Universities already do their own testing) because:
- they often do not assess adequately of what is learned at school;
- they eliminate many candidates for Higher and Further Education by selection at course entrance level;
- there is a high drop-out rate among those who gain university access with old-fashioned "Gold Standard" qualifications (in some cases as high as 30%).

The EPC will address these problems by focusing on the following aspects:

• recognition and increasing visibility of a far wider range of learning outcomes (formal, informal and non-formal);
• the students' own choice of some EPC components, and hence a greater sense of ownership of the certificate.
• pedagogical benefits on the students' part that come from years of portfolio/project work: students become accustomed to reflect on their own learning and to cogently present their work to others and to benefit from the resulting peer assessment;
• increased motivation resulting from this process, a boost in the quality of teaching (breaking with old habits) and consequent (student-student, student-teacher and even student-parent).

All institutions participating in the project have the backing of their national associations and/or federations of Steiner Waldorf Schools and of the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education. At the beginning, half way and at the end of the Comenius EPC project, the Potsdam Waldorf School will host three European Conferences for all Steiner Waldorf schools and any other school interested in working with the EPC held in Potsdam on the 16th of October 2008 and the next one will be in October 2009.

Anybody interested in receiving material or in participating, please contact Thilo Koch, Project coordinator (koch@ecswe.org) or Chiara Carones (ecswe@waldorf.net).

Chiara Carones, Thilo Koch and Detlef Hardorp

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