What the Soft Skills Project Taught Us: Looking Back at the Need for Soft Skills in School Teams

Erasmus+ project: Soft Skills for High Quality Education / Published: July 2026

As the Soft Skills for High Quality Education project comes to a close, it's time to look back and take stock of what our work with educators and Teacher Support Learning Group (TSLG) leaders across the partner countries has brought us.

A confirmed need

One thing became clear: people working in education have a genuine need to develop their soft skills. It's not just about more effective collaboration with colleagues — soft skills also proved important for the wellbeing of those who work with children and adults every day. Participants joked that soft skills aren't only needed in an educational team — they're needed in every team, in every workplace — and that it's a topic worth taking seriously.

Skills that can be developed

For many, it was a surprising discovery that soft skills aren't something innate or fixed — they can be developed, given the right approaches and the right tools.

Adult learning has its own rules

It also became clear that adult learning has its own specifics: it needs to be closely tied to practice and genuinely hands-on. This isn't about knowledge being passed down from a single expert to everyone else — it's a meeting of colleagues, each of whom brings their own valuable experience and contributes it to the shared whole.

Looking ahead

The interest we saw throughout the project also revealed a gap in the systematic support for developing soft skills in education — a gap we'll keep working to close even after the project ends.

"Knowledge isn't carried by a single expert — it emerges from a meeting of colleagues, each of whom brings their own valuable experience and contributes it to the shared whole."

The Soft Skills Toolbox is Here

Erasmus+ project: Soft Skills for High Quality Education / Published: July 2026

We're excited to share the Soft Skills Toolbox for Leaders of Teacher Support Learning Groups (TSLGs) — one of the main outputs of the Soft Skills for High Quality Education project, now available in English.

It grew out of a simple but often overlooked observation: soft skills such as trust, active listening, reflection, and collaboration don't develop on their own within a group — they need intentional support and skilled facilitation. The Toolbox was built precisely to give TSLG leaders that support.

Who developed it

The Toolbox was developed by the project partners — Educational Research Institute (SI), Wide Open School/Škola Dokorán (SK), Hea Algus (EE), and Open Academy Step by Step (HR) — to support anyone who facilitates professional learning communities in early childhood education: preschool teachers leading peer groups, coordinators guiding reflective practice, or principals building a culture of continuous learning.

What's inside

• A Handbook — the conceptual foundation: how adults learn, why soft skills matter for professional learning, and how to build trust and psychological safety in a group.
• Videos showing real examples of TSLG facilitation in practice, covering 20 soft skills from communication and empathy to conflict resolution and self-care.
• Reflective cards for guided individual and group reflection, usable to open a discussion, deepen it, or close a session.
• Practical activities and techniques to boost participation and skill-building, especially useful when a group needs more energy or when reflection stays too surface-level.
• Tips & tricks for common facilitation challenges, helping leaders plan sessions, respond to group dynamics, and reflect on their own practice.

How to use it

Importantly, the Toolbox isn't meant to be followed step by step from beginning to end. It's designed as a flexible companion — some leaders will read it in full before starting a new series of TSLG meetings, others will come back to specific sections only when a particular challenge arises. Both approaches work equally well.

"This toolkit gives you instruments; your curiosity, patience, and genuine belief in the people you work with give those instruments life." — from the Toolbox Handbook, A Final Word for Facilitators

Link to download the Toolbox: published shortly

International Dissemination Event:

How Do Learning Communities Emerge Where Professionals Truly Learn From One Another?

Erasmus+ project: Soft Skills for High Quality Education / Published: June 2026

On June 3rd, 2026, we held the international online dissemination event Strengthening Soft Skills in Practice: What Works, What's Missing, What's Next, organised in partnership with ECOS Institute and the International Step by Step Association. The event ran for an hour and a half and included live captioning, making it accessible to as wide an audience as possible across Europe.

What the event covered

The event offered insight into how Teacher Support Learning Groups (TSLGs) emerge and function in early childhood education — spaces where professionals genuinely learn from one another. The discussion focused on:

• trust and active listening within a group,
• reflection and collaboration among colleagues,
• psychological safety as a condition for open dialogue,
• why good professional discussions don't happen on their own, but require thoughtful support and facilitation.

Insights straight from the project

Speakers drew directly on our project's experience — working with TSLG leaders across Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, and Estonia — and presented concrete approaches to strengthening soft skills through reflection, video-based learning, peer exchange, and communities of practice. Participants reflected together on what worked in the project and what challenges emerged during its implementation. They also discussed what's needed for these competencies to stay alive and spread across the entire early childhood education system — not just within the individual organisations involved.

Event recording

Published shortly

Sometimes the Most Important Discoveries Are the Ones We Never Expected

What happens when schools stop assuming and start truly listening?

When teachers reflect on why some young people gradually drift away from school, the answers often seem simple. Lack of motivation. Family problems. Poor attendance. Bullying. Learning difficulties. After all, who should know students better than the school itself?

But is that really true?

That question is exactly where the first phase of the Hubs4Teens project began. Schools in Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy didn't rush to design new activities or quick fixes. They started with something far simpler — and far more demanding. They listened. They talked with teachers, school leadership, students, parents, former students, and people from the community. They asked how school actually feels from the inside. The goal wasn't to assign blame or evaluate schools — it was to understand them better, first.

Something interesting emerged. Every school told a different story. But one experience kept repeating: in many cases, what schools took for granted turned out to look very different through students' eyes.

When adults and children see the same school through different eyes

One Slovak school entered the diagnostic process confident that a safe school environment was one of its strengths. It had invested real time and energy into exactly that. But when students anonymously described their own experiences, a very different picture emerged. Some of them didn't feel nearly as safe as school leadership assumed. Yet the finding itself wasn't the most important part. The school didn't shut down in response. It didn't try to dispute the results or explain them away. It treated them as a chance to better understand how students themselves experience school. It became clear that good intentions aren't enough. What matters is how school feels to the people who live it every day.

Some problems stay hidden for a long time

Schools in Hungary had a similar surprise. Teachers were confident that bullying wasn't a serious issue at their schools. But students' anonymous answers told a different story — some of them were experiencing something quite different. Without a safe space to speak openly, this problem might have gone unnoticed indefinitely. Instead, it became one of the central themes of the action plans now being developed.

The self-diagnostic process also opened up conversations that, under normal circumstances, might never have happened. During one meeting, a Roma teacher shared, for the first time, a personal experience from his own childhood. He talked about what it was like to grow up as a high-achieving Roma student — and to be told, at the same time, that succeeding meant he was “acting like a Hungarian.” His colleagues later said that this single moment helped them understand things no data or statistics ever could.

When the problem isn't a lack of motivation

In Slovenia, some of the most powerful moments came from conversations with former students. Asked why he had gradually stopped going to school, one of them answered simply: “I just couldn't see the point. That's why I had no motivation to study.” That one sentence shifted the entire direction of the discussion. Teachers stopped asking how to motivate students. They started asking something far more fundamental: How do we build a school where young people feel that learning matters? That they belong? And that someone notices when they start to struggle? These questions are now shaping individual schools' action plans and influencing the direction of the project's next activities.

Another conversation left a deep impression — with a young woman who became pregnant at fourteen and left school as a result. Her story opened up a discussion among teachers about how schools often address relationships, adolescence, and responsible parenthood too late — by the time some young people are already facing these realities themselves.

Change begins long before the first activity

One of the biggest surprises of the project's first phase was that change began before schools had even drafted their first action plans. It was enough to bring teachers, students, parents, former students, and community members — figuratively — to the same table. Everyone brought their own perspective. And it was exactly where those perspectives met that schools began to see connections they hadn't seen before.

“What's wrong with these kids?” → “What can we do differently?“

That shift is one of the most valuable outcomes of the entire self-diagnostic process. It shows that responsibility for young people's success doesn't rest only with them or their families. It's a shared task — for the school, the family, and the whole community.

From listening to action

In July, project partners met in Ljubljana for an international Training of Trainers. This time, they weren't arriving with hypotheses. They were bringing real experience from their schools. Together, they looked for ways to turn diagnostic findings into concrete steps — from teacher training, through the work of Local Action Teams, to the development of Teen Hubs that will respond to the needs of each individual school and its community.

The project's first phase didn't produce ready-made solutions. It delivered something far more important. New questions. And the courage to listen to the answers — even the ones schools might not have expected.

The Hubs4Teens project is implemented with the support of the UniCredit Foundation.

What if outdoor play was not an 'extra'?

A powerful and essential way for children to learn, connect and grow

An Introduction to Outdoor Play Labs: Integrating STEM and Social-Emotional Learning Through Outdoor Play

Across Europe, children's opportunities for outdoor play are steadily declining. Urbanisation, increased screen time, safety concerns and rigid curricula are limiting access to environments where children can explore, experiment and learn through direct experience. At the same time, education systems are placing a growing emphasis on STEM learning and social-emotional development. However, these subjects are often taught in isolation from one another and from children’s everyday realities. Many educators also lack the support and confidence to bring these areas together in meaningful and inclusive ways. These challenges are particularly pronounced for children from disadvantaged communities, who face additional barriers to accessing high-quality learning opportunities.

OUTPLAY – Outdoor Play Labs addresses this issue by combining outdoor play, STEM education, and social-emotional learning (SEL) into a unified approach. Rather than treating these areas as separate subjects, the project positions outdoor environments as dynamic learning spaces where children aged 3–10 can develop curiosity, problem-solving skills, collaboration and emotional awareness through hands-on, play-based activities.

At the heart of OUTPLAY is a focus on practical and scalable solutions that support educators in incorporating outdoor learning into their daily practice, equipping them with new competences in outdoor STEM and SEL pedagogy that directly benefit the children they teach. The project involves the development of an Outdoor STEM & SEL Toolkit comprising ready-to-use, curriculum-aligned activities, as well as a comprehensive training approach incorporating a Training of Trainers model and national-level workshops. These methods are piloted in schools and early years settings in Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland to ensure they are tested and refined in real-world contexts. Outdoor Play Labs and community events extend learning beyond the classroom, actively engaging families and local stakeholders. Crucially, the DIY Outdoor Learning Labs model is specifically designed to be low-cost and adaptable, ensuring that schools with limited budgets and resources can also participate and benefit. To promote sustainability and wider adoption, all resources are made available via an open-access digital platform. Policy recommendations that encourage the integration of outdoor learning into education systems are also provided.

OUTPLAY is implemented by a transnational consortium of organisations working in the fields of early childhood education, research and community engagement. It is led by Škola dokorán – Wide Open School (Slovakia) in partnership with International Child Development Initiatives (the Netherlands), Fundacja Pro Fil (Poland), Pučko otvoreno učilište Korak po korak (Croatia), Pedagoški inštitut (Slovenia) and International Step by Step Association (the Netherlands).

Together, the consortium brings complementary expertise in play-based learning, STEM education, social-emotional development, inclusion and policy. The project is funded by the European Union.

By connecting practice, research and community engagement, OUTPLAY contributes to more inclusive and responsive education systems where outdoor play is recognised as a powerful pathway for learning and development, not an 'extra'. It demonstrates how children can build knowledge and skills in engaging, relevant ways that are grounded in their lived experiences, while also fostering a sense of belonging and connection to the natural world.

To learn more about OUTPLAY – Outdoor Play Labs and explore project resources, visit the project page on the ISSA website: https://issa.nl/outplay/home.

Identifying Risk Factors Using the OPERA Method

As part of the project's local workshops, we utilize the OPERA method as a key tool for generating a list of risk factors related to early school leaving. This participatory method allows us to effectively collect insights from practitioners and transform them into specific research questions, which will later serve in the creation of questionnaires and interviews.

OPERA is a structured process that combines individual thinking with group work, built upon five pillars:

• O (Observe): Careful observation of the situation and data collection.
• P (Propose): Suggesting hypotheses based on experience.
• E (Experiment): Testing ideas through group sharing.
• R (Reflect): Analyzing results and learning from them.
• A (Adjust): Adjusting the approach based on findings.

The 7 Steps of the OPERA Workshop

1. Introduction - Introduction of the participants and the workshop's goal. The facilitator asks the key question: "What are the causes of early school leaving at your school?"

2. Individual Suggestions - Individual silent work. Each participant writes down their own list of factors and answers on a piece of paper.

3. Pair Proposals. Working in pairs, participants discuss their lists and select the 4 most important points. They write these in large letters on separate A4 sheets and post them on the board.

4. Justification. Each pair has one minute to explain their suggestions to the rest of the group. Duplicate cards on the board are merged.

5. Ranking (Voting). Prioritizing the factors. Each pair assigns 4 points (+) to the most important suggestions on the board (a maximum of one point for their own proposal, the others for other groups' proposals).

6. Synthesis. The facilitator groups the cards according to the number of points and themes. The group collectively assigns descriptive titles to each column of factors.

7. Formulation of Questions. Working in small groups, participants propose specific questions for children, parents, or teachers for each factor. These will later be used in questionnaires to verify the risks.

The result is a list of priority risk factors and a set of verification questions that will serve as a foundation for the local researcher's further fieldwork.

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This text was produced as part of the Hubs4Teens project, funded by the UniCredit Foundation through the Edu-Fund platform.

School Failure as Systemic Vulnerability: Findings from the Initial Diagnostic Phase

In the HUBS4TEENS project, we implemented the first phase of self-diagnosis across three Slovak schools, aimed at identifying risk factors for school failure. The goal was not to identify "problematic students," but rather to understand the conditions and processes that increase the likelihood of young people gradually disengaging from school.

Lower secondary school teachers, school leadership, and specialist staff (school psychologists, educational counselors, and others) participated in the workshops. They utilized a participatory methodology, which allowed for the naming of risks derived from everyday pedagogical experience rather than just administrative indicators.

From Individual Failure to Systemic Dynamics

One of the most significant findings is a shift in how school failure is understood. Schools no longer view it as an isolated event (such as a formal dropout) but as a process in which various vulnerabilities gradually accumulate.

Across the participating schools, risk factors were grouped into four interconnected areas:

1. Loss of Meaning and Perspective

Low intrinsic motivation does not appear as a primary cause, but often as a consequence of repeated failure and the absence of a clear vision for the future. When a student sees no link between school and their own life trajectory, their engagement naturally declines.

2. Family and Social Conditions

Schools highlighted the importance of the home environment—stability, parental support, study conditions, and linguistic background. In contexts with increased social disadvantage or migration, these factors accumulate and amplify one another.

3. Organizational Demands and Adaptation Challenges

The transition to lower secondary education brings higher demands for independence, planning, and self-regulated learning. Poor study habits or irregular attendance often appear more as signs of adaptive overload than as issues of discipline.

4. Emotional Well-being and Sense of Belonging

Low self-esteem, fear of failure, feelings of rejection, or a weakened relationship with the school emerged as central factors. School failure is closely linked to whether a student feels safe, respected, and accepted within the school environment.

Contextual Specifics

While the core areas were similar, individual schools also identified specific layers of vulnerability:

• Language barriers and adaptation stress among students from Ukrainian backgrounds.
• The accumulation of social disadvantage in regions with a higher proportion of marginalized communities.
• Excessive use of digital technologies as a factor in distraction and fragmented attention.

These factors alone may not lead to dropout; the risk increases when they combine and persist over time without support.

Formal Numbers vs. Real Vulnerability

Official statistics on early school leaving in Slovakia remain relatively low. However, the diagnosis highlighted a broader circle of students who formally remain within the system, but whose engagement, performance, or relationship with the school is gradually weakening.

The distinction between formal "dropout" and functional vulnerability is key. It underscores the need for a preventive approach that acts on early signals before they become irreversible.

Next Step: The Voice of the Students

The first phase provided the perspective of pedagogical and specialist staff. In the next stage, students themselves will be involved through interviews and focus groups. The aim is to confront the professional perspective with their lived experience and create support tools that respond to the real needs of young people.

In this sense, self-diagnosis is not a tool for control, but a tool for the school to learn about its own vulnerabilities—and the possibilities of preventing them.

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This text was produced as part of the Hubs4Teens project, funded by the UniCredit Foundation through the Edu-Fund platform.