Orientation and Training Success Project (O.T.S.P) started in 2008 thanks to the financing support of the Compagnia di San Paolo, with the aim of supporting, in Turin and its metropolitan area, young non-native speakers enhancing their training success and active citizenship. The project, targeting to secondary schools, is developed in partnership and under the sponsorship of the City of Turin and the Ufficio Scolastico Regionale.

The project’s goal can be summarized in these two interrelated achievements:

1. coming to a successful conclusion with one-to-one processes of welcoming, inclusion, orientation, re-orientation, supporting various subjects involved: young people, families, school;
2. fostering a systematic and shared approach in those processes such as welcoming, inclusion, orientation and re-orientation developing towards three directions (non native speaking students’ role in school, welcoming process and supporting materials) the commitment of the professional community of teachers and experts in didactical orientation, in order to reach and to manage training standards for young immigrants’ inclusion.

Four actions are to be developed during the school year 2009-2010:

Orientation and re-orientation
A specific action of orientation is supporting young people as soon as they get to Italy, even during the academic year. The main purpose is to help them choosing the right course of studies, accordingly both to the studies carried on in their countries of origin and to their project of life and that of their families, identifying, together with the scholastic committee, possible ways to support them and promoting the studying of Italian language as the language for studying.
A specific action of re-orientation is offered to those students - and families - who may experience any school failure during the academic year. The service aims to help students understanding which alternative choices may enhance their training success, playing along with parents and students themselves in the choice of the new course of studies, in order to develop and foster their individual competences. After any bad results during the first trimester or four-month period, it’s still possible to shape the scholastic path of the students in order to get them ready for the new course of studies to be started in the next year, supporting them in studying new subjects and helping them – where possible – not to lose the year but to prepare admission exams to the new school.

Area scuola
A training, informative and counseling service is offered to teachers, administrative offices and headmasters on those issues related to immigrant students through different activities and tools: a dedicated website www.ilnostropianeta.it, a network of teachers in charge of welcoming foreign students, a specific attention and support to those critical situations highlighted from time to time by the schools.
The main focuses of online and de visu counseling service are related to teachers’ difficulties in managing scholastic inclusion, from bureaucratic, legal, psychological and didactical points of view, orientation and intercultural activities; in supporting immigrant parenthood; in taking into consideration immigrants associations and local services that the city has to offer.
This counseling service is available from Monday to Friday from 9.30 am to 5.00 pm, both calling the numbers 011.197.02.555 and 338.7260697, and visiting our offices in Via Cordero di Pamparato, 2 in Turin. Counseling is available also online, through the following email address areascuola@ilnostropianeta.it.

The value of  immigrants’ presence: peer tutoring
The training experience of young peer tutors, carried out since 2008, offers training opportunities through drama animation techniques and interactive intercultural education, helping young students in reflecting over issues such as cultural belongings and identity, intercultural and interreligious relationship, conflicts’ mediation and active citizenship. Methodology and contents aim to foster the ability of interacting in a multicultural contest over issues related not only to citizenship and dialogue, but also to peer-to-peer support, mutual aid and personal identity. During these training workshops, students have the opportunity to express themselves, communicating with others, working in team, understanding and appreciating their personal history as immigrants and fostering their planning ability.

Sharing and formalization of procedural, operative and evaluation tools. Their experimentation.
In collaboration with teachers with relevant professional experiences in the field of inclusion of non-native speaking students, the project aims to collect and systematize the efforts done so far, building up an online handbook for services dedicated to scholastic and professional orientation, which could put together best practices in welcoming new students, ways for involving parents in the training process, tools for evaluating competences, criteria for school and training orientation, strategies for targeting training process and evaluation. A complementary activity of collecting useful materials for inclusive didactics will be started in order not only to share what has been produced in Italy so far, but also to offer materials created in other countries, whose languages might help immigrant students while studying subjects or contents they never deal with in their country of origin. We therefore aim to provide an overview of the secondary school didactical landscape in the countries of origin of young immigrants studying in Italy, not only searching for materials, programs and textbooks, but also finalizing a repository of materials, documents and textbooks including experiences carried on both in Italy and in other European countries with similar immigration flows.