IncluGamePlay is an Erasmus+ (KA220-SCH) cooperation partnership that aims to make European schools more inclusive through games and drama-based education.

Main objective of the project

The aim of IncluGamePlay is to provide teachers and school support professionals with easy-to-use tools that help strengthen empathy, acceptance, and a sense of community in the classroom. The project focuses particularly on neurodivergent students, learners with learning difficulties, socially disadvantaged students, and those from linguistic or ethnic minority backgrounds. This is important because neurodivergent, disadvantaged, and minority students can only build long-term connections to learning and their communities in safe and accepting environments.

Partnership and international cooperation

The consortium is led by the Slovak organisation Impact Games, which has extensive experience in developing educational and social impact games. From Hungary, The Foundation for 21st Century Pedagogy (E-mentoring) participates in the project, together with UP-Down Syndrom (Duhadlo Theatre) from Slovakia and EGInA (European Grants International Academy) from Italy. The partners combine expertise in game development, inclusion, drama therapy, and pedagogy in order to jointly create tools that can be widely used.

Main activities

IncluGamePlay is structured around five main work packages:

- Project management
- IncluGame board game development: a new board game supporting inclusion will be developed in both printed boxed format and as a free downloadable print-and-play version, available in Slovak, Hungarian, Italian, Romani, and English.​
- Drama pedagogy toolkit: the project will produce 10 playful worksheets with an inclusion focus, 10 e-booklets containing drama and drama therapy exercises, and 10 video tutorials that help teachers integrate drama methods into everyday school practice.
- School programme: 200 “early adopter” teachers and school support professionals will be trained, and pilot sessions will be implemented in 40 schools, involving approximately 700 students.
- Campaign: an extensive communication campaign aims to reach 4,000 schools and engage at least 300,000 people on the importance of inclusive education.

Expected results and impact

The tangible outcome of the project will be an inclusive board game and a comprehensive drama pedagogy toolkit, which teachers and school support professionals will be able to use independently. According to the plans, 4,000 schools will gain access to the materials, 600 schools will receive the board game in physical form, and at least 200 teachers will become “early adopters” who actively integrate the game and drama tools into their practice. In the longer term, IncluGamePlay will contribute to making inclusion, the acceptance of neurodiversity, and respect for diversity a more natural part of European school culture.

The project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union and the Erasmus+ Programme within the framework of the project titled “InkluGamePlay: Increasing Inclusion in Schools with Games and Drama Education.” The information and views expressed here represent the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.