CONTEXTThe early years from birth to compulsory school age are the most formative in children lives and set the foundations for children’s lifelong development. In this respect, high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is essential for all children’s successful lifelong learning, social integration, personal development and later employability.Every child requires and deserves a service that is holistic in approach and that provides a social, cultural and physical space with a range of possibilities for children to develop their present and future potential. These recommendations are part of the priorities for ECEC that EU Commission has set out aiming to make it more accessible and raise the quality of services provided in the EU states.Increasing access to high quality ECEC is also the focus of the European benchmark that calls for the participation of at least 95% of children between the age of 4 and compulsory school age by 2026.High quality ECEC has a particularly positive impact for children from disadvantaged and migrant backgrounds. Since 2018 was the European Year of Cultural Heritage, culture should be considered as a mean to foster integration in the classroom.OBJECTIVESThe following project objectives represented a concrete way to tackle the above-mentioned topics:- Train ECEC teachers to implement workshops on the thematic of European Culture with kids aged 3-5 at EU level- Update digital competencies of teachers- Promote children and family awareness in the frame of Cultural Heritage - Develop a holistic approach based on Active Learning and Play to support children’s growth- Implement cultural workshops with kids.In order to reach these objectives, the consortium investigated the needs and competence gaps of more than 50 teachers through focus groups in each partner country. On the basis of an interactive process of development and mutual feedback the partnership elaborated the EDUCLAB Guidelines, Training Handbook and Toolkit: a collection of useful contents and materials for pre-school teachers to implement cultural workshops in the classroom aimed at fostering inclusion of children coming from a disadvantaged background and preparing pupils to visit cultural institutions. The development phase was followed by a comprehensive testing through a common European learning and teaching activity with 19 pre-school teachers, local training sessions with 65 teachers at EU level and the implementation of 21 Cultural workshops with 382 children at EU level.According to this methodological action plan the main project RESULTS were:IO1. EDUCLAB Guidelines. A document for teachers on how to arrange training environment, learning processes, address age-specific needs and children motivation when implementing cultural workshopsIO2. EDUCLAB Training Handbook to supply competences for teachers to implement cultural workshops and to provide them skills in the digital area and inclusive approachesIO3. EDUCLAB Toolkit. A step-by-step description on how to carry out the cultural workshopsIO4. EDUCLAB Online platform and Cultural workshops. Video Tutorials were developed and uploaded on the EDUCLAB online platform to complete the EDUCLAB Toolkit with visual-based learning support. Additional videos were developed during the implementation of Cultural workshops at EU level.These IOs were connected with Local Multiplier Events and with the EDUCLAB Final conference in order to reach the widest range of target groups and stakeholders possible.In addition to the 4 core intellectual outputs EDUCLAB developed further outputs necessary to achieve its objectives: Dissemination and Communication Strategy, Quality Management Handbook and reports.EDUCLAB achieved an extended IMPACT on:- Direct participants in the project (pre-school teachers) who acquired skills in the digital field and to implement STEAM-based cultural workshops in the classroom for children 3-5 aiming at promoting inclusion of children with disadvantaged background;- Partner organizations who integrated the EDUCLAB training programme in their curriculum and will use them to train pre-school teachers in order to better support the integration in the class group of children aged 3-5 with different cultural backgrounds;- Other stakeholders and Associated Partners: they received an innovative tool to use in their daily work in the ECEC field. Since the platform will be available for 5 years after the end of the project, it will ensure a sustainable EU network of ECEC providers who can access a wide range of materials in various languages.On a LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE, the benefits of the project will be on a systemic level with an increased quality of the ECEC system (reinforced and updated skills of pre-school teachers) which fosters the social inclusion of children with disadvantaged backgrounds.