A brief CV

Chris Souvlis worked in London at the British Council, the UK Agency for the EU Education Programs, from 1999 to 2010.

Since leaving, he continues to represent the Agency as a British Council Schools Ambassador, supporting schools in England to make international links and undertake international projects and training. He led a London schools network and coordinated their European project applications, training workshops and international project work including 5 large Comenius and Erasmus+ projects with partners including the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Since 2015, he has been the Deputy Chair of the (UK) Global Learning Association which supports current and former local government advisers across the UK with their international education links.

In that role, he has helped to build the organisations collaboration with international partners.

2019 saw him leading teacher groups to China, Sweden, Iceland and Gran Canaria, as well as hosting study visits of school staff from France, Italy and Denmark in the UK http://globallearningassociation.org/?page_id=383

The Covid pandemic has halted most of his work recently and the Brexit settlement negotiated by the UK’s Conservative Party government means that the current Erasmus+ projects that the UK is undertaking may sadly be their last.

But Chris’s belief in the importance of international education opportunities continues and in October 2020, he prepared a successful, final Erasmus+ project application with partners including Aristotle University in Greece, Get Creative in Italy and CEE AutoLearn in Sweden.  Get Creative with Art Online 2021 – 2023will see the partners producing teaching resources for primary level Art, Drama and Languages and Chris is the project’s coordinator.

Collaborative Education projects – Benefits and Challenges

The elements of a strong project, what can be some of the challenges which might prevent a project being successful and what are the benefits (to both individuals and institutions) when projects go well.

‘Get Creative with Art’ – can Art inspire pupil learning?

Chris Souvlis developed the Erasmus+ project, GET CREATIVE WITH ART ONLINE  (2021- 23) which he will discuss in this session.

Led by the UK, and with partners in Italy, Greece and Sweden, the project aims to develop 8 teaching Modules for teachers to use in schools to provide inspiring lessons using Artworks to engage pupils on themes like ‘OUR WORLD’, STRENGTH AND POWER’  and  ‘SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY’. 

Chris’s starting point was seeing how teachers from across the EU responded to the challenge of improving their English language skills when he took them to the National Gallery in London and they used the Art there as inspiration.   Learners were much more engaged when discussing the paintings, creating poems and making their own art inspired by the Art they saw.   

The new materials Chris has helped develop build on this experience, so teachers anywhere can engage their pupils in a creative way with Art, Language and Drama tasks.  Could this be more effective with some harder to reach pupils than traditional teaching approaches?