Reinventing our schools

Human, Woman, Mother, Daughter. Curious, Creative, Communicator, Empathetic, Resilient, Focused, Active. 

I started of my career as a scientist, working in and out of Portugal. Then I worked in two big companies for several years in different projects. 

In 2015, my daughter was born and I started to re-think all my priorities. I started to think what was really important to me in my life.

I wanted to be part of a necessary transformation in our society and hence I needed to transform myself first. This transformation is society is so necessary and like every story we should start at the beginning. Starting at the beginning means starting at schools. 

A change needs to occur; but to occur this change, we need to listen, involve and only then reinvent. Support and inspiring educators to contribute to the educational change within schools making them happier places, is my mission. 

1.Challenges: Reduction of student engagement towards learning in nowadays schools; increase of stress in students and teachers, lack of family-school collaboration.

2.Reinventing our schools (with 6-12 years old and/or up to 15 years/old kids) works in 3 strategic axes: educational marketing (designing and implementing a strategy based on local needs involving a school community), science (measure results + impact coming from the implemented actions. The measurement will come from inquiries and psychologic/skill tests done at different time points of the project) and communication (communicate the process with the lay public/ publish results with the scientific community). We focus mainly in: how we teach; spaces and how we evaluate kids. This project target groups are students, teachers, educational auxiliaries, headmasters and families.

3.Schools are the basis of current and future community creation. Promoting this change, we'll be contributing for a more conscious relationship with ourselves, with others and with our environment.

The problems that this project is targeting are described above. It relates to a deep change in the educational process from our schools.

This project is currently located in the greater Lisbon region from Portugal (it has a population of 2.2 million people – 22% of the country population; census 2013). It is comprised of 9 regions within. It has a big disparity when it concerns socioeconomical conditions, having still a dropout or retention rates above the average of the country (several local newspapers state this).

According to census 2011, in this region there are nearly 300.000 kids from ages (5-14 years old). According to PORDATA, in 2019 there were registered in private schools (from these ages range) we had around 12%-13% of kids (could be a bit higher in the greater Lisbon vs Portugal) which means that around 40.000 kids have access to this kid of education where only a few number of schools (up to 10-12 schools in the Lisbon region) are actually already providing a differentiation in their educational projects. Even many private schools also have several challenges to thrive, public schools are the ones in most need to change and we little budget to apply.

We work with the directors or headmasters from the schools or groups of schools. Here we apply the concepts of Happiness Management top down. One of the already identified needs (transversal to the majority of schools) is that teachers are overburdened and hence they don’t feel mentally capable to innovate.

Second step, we need to understand what are the specific needs/problems from the school or group of schools (inquiries to parents+students and school staff). We create a team – Involvement - that will have representatives from the direction, teachers, educational auxiliaries, parents and school psychology). We create the new educational strategy together (inspired in the process defined by Phillip Kotler). In this strategy we define short term and long-term goals. In the 1st year, we do the reinvention in 25-50% of the classes from the school in a case control approach. We measure results after 3 months, 6 months and 12 months to redefine any situations along the way. 2nd year we extended to other classes and measure at the same timeline points. Measurements can be qualitative and/or quantitative (skill tests). We promote the strengthen of communication with the community to reinforce the creation of educational communities and publish scientifically.

1.Students, Teachers, School Staff, School Directors, Parents

2.Talk to them, providing anonymous inquiries. following up

3. First, we need to conquer the directors so that internal policies can change. Then we work on the happiness management process so that school staff starts to feel less overburdened. Then, when they can breathe, we can involve them in a new reinvention process, in the strategy design and implementation; where they will be the owners of the change with the help from facilitators (from Coração de Criança). No work after working hours to promote work-life balance. 

We change people's behaviours when we listen to them and understand their pains. When we take the step of caring, of becoming empathetic and even compassion about it, we conquer our tribe (a very interesting concept from Seth Godin). Everyone wants to be part of something (it's a social behaviour from our species). If people feel care, listened to, they will want to be part of the reinvention, where they work every day.

I'd been working the healthcare sector for nearly 17 years, when in 2015 I became a mother. I was an extremely well succeeded professional with national and international projets, but suddenly that wasn’t enough anymore. My daughter came to change my priorities, to made me rethink my values… at it started to made me rethink what I wanted to do with my life. For around 3 years I was in an inner search to understand where I wanted to go. In 2019, I clicked and i left the company where I had been for 11 years. I understood that social entrepreneurship was my thing, specially the education field. The majority of our schools are still based in premises of the XIX century. Kids and teachers feel disengaged from the current system.

I reinvented myself and wanted to help communities to do the same. By having a different education, students and teachers can all find our inner balance, be more adapted to challenges, to live happier lives. What better place to start than schools? Reinventing our schools was born, from a heart of a mother that rediscovered her inner child and how that is important to live a better daily life.

Education is a transversal theme. It starts at home; it continues at school. Kids spend too many hours at schools hence schools have a major role in what type of adult’s kids become. Families are not always the compass that kids should have and many times teachers and educational staff play a major role in kids lives.

Schools can also be seen as companies, and like in companies, the collaborators are human and they need to feel a strong connection to what they do, to the people they are working with. Like any other worker they need work life balance because they deliver a major role in a community construction.

When i became a mother, I changed. I started to see myself and others differently. As a consequence, people I worked with also started to see me differently. 

Changing the way, we care and educate, inspiring students to become better persons, will influence some to understand better themselves and relate better to other. They will be the changemakers of new communities.

When I was 17, I choose to study Biology in University. That and the national plus international experience as a researcher gave the knowledge and the skills linked to the importance of measuring results, publishing/sharing results and the understanding that lifelong learning is a must if you truly want to evolve. 

After a few years of research, I wanted to try the corporative world. I worked in 2 companies in different roles. Learned the difference between a group of people and a team, did mentoring, designed strategies, developed empathy, communication and leadership skills. Helped people (that were costumers) writing study protocols, scientific papers.

I also studied (post grad) marketing and scientific affairs, to gain more skills in areas that I needed. But the best learning came by working together with other people, from other cultures with other experiences.

After my reinvention I found mindfulness and the power within. I also found compassion. By being an entrepreneur in a country like mine I understood well what motivation and resilience are. And I understood the power of love, from my family to me and me to my family.

I discovered that I have a lot of skills and that I'm driven by passion but above all (and I had confirmations from people :)) I found that I inspire others and that I'm a connector. But above all I realized I don't need to know everything; I need to work in a team with others and altogether we can do the puzzle together.

Awareness in the Portuguese market: 

I founded Coração de Criança in September 2019, and even though I have 12 years of experience in Marketing & Communication and several other years in Science; bringing these skills to schools was a different game, in terms of market perception.

So, I joined structures that were already known and could provide me some leverage in reaching to the decision makers from schools. I joined BNI Portugal and because I felt a big connection to hundrED.org, and so I proposed myself to be an Ambassador for Portugal (greater Lisboa) and I was accepted.

Through BNI I got to know EQUALISE (social entrepreneurship summit 2020) and had an abstract regarding “Reinventing Schools” accepted and will be a speaker in September in conference they are organizing. I also got invited to be part of the board members from a new BNI Portugal group just focused in kids’ education, that will be launched September 2020.

I created a series of interviews (social media channels due to COVID restriction) where I promoted the conversation about the state of our current education at schools (the goods and the bads).

In my previous job as a product management, I didn't manage people directly. I soon realized that the sales team needed mentoring from those who could be with them on the field understanding their daily challenges and helping all together in developing real time action plans. My job was to design strategies, but I couldn't do them correctly if I wouldn't have been on the field listening to my external and internal costumers needs. I did this for 11 years, and in that time, I had the opportunity to work in all the different solutions from this company, because the way I worked designed good strategies that helped the sales team sell better.

• Using the Educational Marketing model + U theory as an inspiration to design new processes of Reinvention at schools
• Creating educational communities – Team work/Engaging People (families + schools)
• Measuring results and impact
• Publishing data in scientific forums and communicating with the lay public

A school with kids between 6-10 years old.

Root problem: 1. Reduction of student engagement towards learning in nowadays schools; 2. increase of stress in students and teachers, 3. lack of family-school collaboration

Inputs: 1. Identify specific needs + present skills at students and school staff; 2. Develop and Implement the educational marketing axis. Included actions can be projets from thr school but preferably services from Coração de Criança that stimulate the development and change (eg. Hapiness Management, Mindfulness, Empathy through theatre, Changing in and out spaces of urban schools, Adapt 360 degrees evaluation to schools, Change pedagogy workshops+follow up, Anji Play HundrED inspired project. 3. Creation of educational communities, 4. The amazing people from my tribe (teachers, psycologists, arquitects, marketeers etc..)

Outputs: 1. Stress reduction from students and teachers, 2. School seen as a nice place to be 3. Students focus increase, 4. Closer parents to schools

Outcomes: 1. Development of socio emotional skills at students and school staff, 2. Increase of satisfaction rate within schools (students, teachers, school staff, parents), 3. More inclusive and adapted communities

1. 2020/2021: 500-1000 people

2. 2021/2021: 2000-2500 people

3. 2021/2022: 5000-7000 people

I have partnerships with companies, associations and individuals:

1. Happyc for Hapinness Management delivery

2. Mentes Sorridentes for Mindfulness delivery

3.Psychologists to help on socio emotional skill tests analysis; Teachers for the pedagogy delivery reinvention, Empathy from theatre etc..