Summary of the main outcomes of the Non-Formal Education Forum

Let us summarize the main outcomes of the panel discussion on non-formal education:

• A key benefit of DofE non-formal education programmes is long-term and regularity of activities. The DofE has added value in its systematic work with secondary and primary schools.
• In formal education we focus a lot on performance and can't work with error. In non-formal education, error is part of the learning process.
• DofE and non-formal education are changing young people. It shapes them as personalities, challenges them, pushes them further internally and teaches them to know themselves. It teaches them an active approach to civic life and belonging, for example through volunteering. The strength of youth organisations lies in the wide diversity of people of different ages, experiences and skills.
• If you want, there is always room within schools to combine formal and informal activities. But the crucial question is how to fit non-formal education into 40 hours a weekavailable to us and whether the school management will create good conditions.
• It's time to think about what we do for those who lead young people beyond their job responsibilities (e.g. within the DofE), i.e. for teachers. Although mentors and supervisors are key to the success of the DofE, they do not have sufficient legislative support and often lack support from schools.

Thank you to our panelists for their very stimulating contributions to the panel discussion. In particular, we would like to thank the 1st Vice-Chairman of the Senate Jiří Růžička, the Deputy Director of the Education and Youth Section of the Ministry of Education Jan Mareš, the Director of the National Pedagogical Institute Ivo Jup, the President of the CRDM Aleš Sedláček, the Director of the Gymnasium na Zatlance Jitka Kmentová and the teacher of the Health School in Pardubice Denisa Švandová. The outputs are very important for us and we will continue to work with them.

The Forum also included 4 workshopswhich presented successful non-formal education projects and from which we hope you took away a lot of interesting knowledge. We would like to summarise the most important ones for you:

Mentoring and coaching workshop: Jolana Dočkalová

• The mentor draws on his experience and tries to give the mentee practical examples and advice on how to behave.
• The coach encourages the achievement of a specific goal and outcome, but may not have practical experience in the area under discussion.

Elective course DofE: Jiří Svoboda

• The workshop showed that the way to integrate DofE into the curriculum is to gradually incorporate it into traditional subjects. The support of the management in the implementation of DofE is crucial.

Workshop "Smart goals - what do I enjoy and where do I want to go?": Tereza Vlčková

• Methodology "SMART goals" can help leaders to set objectives for youth activities in the DofE. The key is to tailor the approach to DofEs individually.
• Dofak should work out action plan according to the goals he set for himself. It is possible to use aids and self-discovery methods (mind maps, etc.). If the goal is unreasonable, we look for a way to reconfigure it so that it is more in line with the possibilities of the dofáka.

Dofebufetik

• In a twenty-minute presentation, the girls introduced the participants to the preparation and sale of food. They talked about the distribution and handing over of the money raised and also about the special events they are preparing.

You can recall the great atmosphere of the Informal Education Forum in our In the video or photo gallery.