How important is good orientation during middle school to enable students and families to choose consciously the future field of study in high school? It matters a lot; indeed it is fundamental as it is the first decisive step toward a young’s future, which must not be lightly considered thus limiting the risk of a wrong decision. Despite its importance, Italian middle schools’ orientation has been overlooked – compared to that from high school to universities or to work – often limiting the orientation path to bare advice from teachers during the last year of middle school, right before enrolment in high school.
It is precisely out of the necessity to give middle school students a proper orientation, that Fondazione De Agostini and Fondazione Agnelli have decided to realize and implement the new digital platform FUtuRI (www.futuri.education).
The platform, completely free, interactive, and user-friendly, addresses teachers and students of middle schools. Since last autumn, dozens of classes in all regions of Italy (except for Valle D’Aosta) have pioneered this platform. This has also been possible thanks to the collaboration of Uffici Scolastici Regional del MIM, especially those of Piedmont, Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio, Calabria, and Sicily.
FUtuRI offers several educational activities to be carried out mainly in the classroom, to help each young girl and boy to better understand their interest, capacities, and ambitions. This will offer them proper orientation advice and will allow them to make the right choice regarding their future studies. The project was developed with and for teachers so that it can become an integral part of the orientation training offering.
The resources at users’ disposal include a non-cognitive questionnaire (knowledge of oneself, of one’s tendency towards school subjects and study methods), five disciplinary questionnaires (two in Italians, two in mathematics, and one in English), and over thirty orienting training modules related to multidisciplinary topics such as the world of books and eco-sustainability. Moreover, the orientation path offers information to learn more about the training offered by secondary schools with the help of teachers. The orientation activities start already in the first year of middle school, according to consistent sequences, and continue the entire cycle of study (3 years).
The project was presented in Milan on 20th February 2024.
Website FUtuRI: futuri.education
For more information regarding the functioning of the website: community@futuri.education