Bucharest, November 12, 2024. AVE (The Association for Values in Education) has carried out this year an extensive partnership with Leroy Merlin, which supported the implementation of the Programme for the Transformation of Schools in Romania.
By means of this programme, AVE aims to support schools, providing a tailored growth plan, developed together with specialists, with a long-term positive impact upon headmasters, teachers, pupils and the community. The project is intended for all the educational establishments throughout the urban and rural areas so that each child should be able to enjoy visible progress in terms of key life skills, relevant for the 21st century. The training of each school within the programme shall take three years.
AVE’s objective, in each school joining the programme, is for the pupils to be able to write, to read and to understand what they have read, to enhance their digital skills level and to develop their social and emotional skills. Progress measurement is done by assessing these skills both upon joining the programme and throughout it. Furthermore, the teachers’ and the headmasters’ development and learning needs are assessed and bolstered via training and business mentorship programmes and a suite of practice-oriented mechanisms and tools ready to apply in class.
Leroy Merlin’s involvement in AVE’s programmes began with financial support for Edu Networks and The Leadership and School Management in 2023. The total value of Leroy Merlin sponsorships across AVE’s programmes is 660,000 Euro, reaching this year alone 360,000 Euro.
Edu Networks was the programme through which AVE has accomplished changes in the development of 114 participating schools. The interventions within the programme focused on three action points: leadership and school management, teaching skills and relevant learning for students. The 3,600 teachers in the participating schools benefitted from personal and professional development by way of access to resources, training, advice, mentoring, professional facilitators and novel and modern work tools, as well as from work sessions with the local community. In their turn, 64,000 pupils were aided in developing their digital and literacy skills. Carried out over a four-year period, Edu Networks adapted organically to the needs of school communities.
With The Leadership and School Management, AVE aimed to make sure that the transformation of schools in Romania began with the main driver of change: the school headmaster. Dedicated to headmasters who wished to effect change both on a personal and a professional level and at their schools, the programme was two-pronged: recognising and developing the skills specific to the headmaster role and identifying and optimising the school area that required more focus from the headmaster and the team. More than 270 public or private kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school headmasters and deputy headmasters were guided in the process of acquiring management and leadership skills, in identifying issues and solving resources and in drafting and implementing an action plan.
Leroy Merlin’s involvement in AVE’s programmes from recent years was not only financial, as both Mihaela Voinea as Sustainable Development Leader and Luca Bianchi as HR Manager actively took part in the process of judging the school headmasters or as business mentors in their training.
“The partnership with Leroy Merlin is very important to us, keeping in mind that supporting companies and business environment is vital in implementing actions, by means of which we intend to transform education, so that each student at the schools within the AVE programmes should be able to make academic progress. Our partnership relies on a joint vision related to the fact that every child in Romania deserves the chance to realise their potential”, said Andreea Nistor, AVE CEO.
“We are honoured to contribute to The Programme for the Transformation of Schools in Romania, a project where education is endowed with new and essential nuances for the future of our communities. I am convinced that, with this project, the impact will be much stronger, being underpinned by a reliable partnership. An authentic partnership entails flexibility, transparency and steady assessment of progress – values we found in our collaboration with AVE. Together, we wish to give every child in Romania the chance to fulfil their potential”, said Mihaela Voinea, Sustainable Development Leader with Leroy Merlin Romania.
The Programme for the Transformation of Schools in Romania integrates, under a single transformation journey, the experience from the Edu Networks, The Leadership Academy and HumanKind programmes. The Transformation Programme’s mission is to assist schools across transformation and learning processes across three pillars: skills development for teachers and headmasters, setting up support and collaboration relationships, as well as steady assessment of progress.
About AVE (The Association for Values in Education)
The Association for Values in Education (AVE) is a non-profit organisation whose main goal is to bring the educational system in Romania to Europe’s top 10 by 2035. AVE wishes to support the transformation of the educational system in Romania into one that promotes respect, honesty, team spirit and responsibility. You can stay in touch with AVE’s endeavours by following the LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram pages.
Despre Leroy Merlin
Leroy Merlin, a member of the ADEO French Group, is a European DYI market, with a history of more than 100 years as a retailer specialising in constructions, ornaments and gardening.
The ADEO map comprises more than 1000 stores located in 20 countries, serving 500 million inhabitants and professionals. We are 150,000 colleagues, leaders developed into a culture of intrapreneurship, fuelled by a common goal: to be useful to ourselves, the others and the entire world, to provide effective and sensible home improvement solutions.
In Romania there 22 operational Leroy Merlin stores, with over 3500 employees, in 16 cities: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Ploiești, Pitești, Brașov, Constanța, Sibiu, Suceava, Târgu Mureș, Bacău, Iași, Timișoara, Oradea, Târgoviște and Arad.