This research is part of the framework of the MUSA project, Spoke 6, Task 3.1.3 "Contrasting and prevention of Early School Leaving in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods", which studies endogenous and exogenous causes related to the relationship between schools, families and territories on school drop-out. It envisages the development of a participative methodology in multidisciplinary teams for the development of reorientation and second-chance actions through community empowerment processes. The action consists in the development and expansion of an already existing hub in the Milan metropolitan area, aimed at preventing and tackling school drop-out. The hub is structured to provide multiple educational services for adolescents and young adults and for relevant professional figures in the education system (teachers, school managers, professional educators, etc.). The hub will promote the implementation of multi-professional working groups (educational, social, socio-medical) with the idea of creating multidisciplinary teams aimed at the coordination of alternative education and community empowerment.

Within this framework, the University of Milano-Bicocca launched a research project aimed at promoting the creation of a multifunctional centre in collaboration with the Calasanzio Institute (in the San Siro district) to support the social, educational, and didactic needs of this Institute and the schools in the area. The aim is transformative: to build a model of integration and contamination between formal education and interventions that take place in extracurricular time or in any case outside the traditional school system.

The "quadrilateral" of San Siro is one of the largest Public Residential Housing areas in Milan and has a high concentration of fragile population: 48.6% are of foreign origin, with 85 different nationalities. These communities express a discomfort related to difficult intercultural relations, as well as a fatigue in managing daily life given by living in compromised residential and public spaces. The majority of young people lives in conditions of invisibility or marginality, suffering from a lack of services. Therefore, in this panorama, neighbourhood schools are fundamental headmasters in guaranteeing access to education and inclusion in pathways to citizenship. These schools often suffer from a widespread negative perception of their educational offerings linked to the presence of minors of non-Italian origin ranging from 65% to 90%, even though they are rich in initiatives and projects and constitute potential spaces for welcoming and combating and preventing school drop-out. This phenomenon reaches in the neighbourhood rates of 19.4% of minors dropping out of school before graduation and 4.3% before the end of secondary school, percentages double the city average.

The main objective is to prevent school drop-out by promoting student well-being, increasing their perception of self-efficacy, emotional security and motivation to learn, and by supporting teachers in their ability to implement innovative and inclusive teaching and learning strategies and methodologies. To this end, the main action includes the experimentation of an innovative teaching and learning curriculum in a class at the Negri plexus (lower secondary school) of the Calasanzio Institute, i.w. class 2E, chosen on the basis of internal characteristics (for instance, high presence of pupils with SEN, 100% of pupils with a migrant background, INVALSI results) and the availability of teaching staff. This innovative curriculum is inspired by alternative education/second-chance school methodologies, with the introduction of modular teaching, two permanent educators in the classroom and Personalised Plans (PP), based on ICF, to be drawn up for all pupils.

The research question guiding the experimentation is: To what extent does the development of an innovative school model, with a high educational density and based on a laboratory, modular and customised teaching and learning approach, affect the learning outcomes and competence goals of pupils?

The research project covers the present school year, 2024/2025. The methodology is participative, oriented towards the creation of a multidisciplinary team and the activation of capacity building processes, with the involvement of 10 teachers (i.e. the 2E class council) and the entire class (14 students). In particular, for the realisation of the new curriculum, the research team adopted the Professional Development Action-Research methodology, involving several stages: - Sharing and defining the work plan with the reference teachers (June 2024) - Meetings with the entire class teaching staff to co-design the curriculum guidelines (educational methodologies, school timetable, possible laboratories, extracurricular activities, rearrangement of the classroom setting, etc.) (June-September 2024) - Meetings with the teaching staff to redefine the new curriculum (September 2024) - Co-planning meetings during the school year (October 2024, January, March, and May 2025). The research involves the use of different tools. The class climate, the degree of pupil motivation and participation, the teacher-student relationship, and the educational and methodological approaches are monitored through observations throughout the year, carried out by the researcher. Together with the teachers, an observation tool was also developed for their use. The in itinere evaluation will also be carried out by means of focus groups and non-directive, semi-structured interviews: two interviews have been conducted so far, one with the Italian teacher and one with the conductor of the curricular Cinema laboratory. The team planned to conduct focus groups and other interviews with both teachers and students. In addition, questionnaires will be administered: a questionnaire to teachers, to study educational and teaching methodologies; a questionnaire and a study test to students, to survey their perception of their own abilities and the practices of teachers. Finally, to monitor the level of Italian L2, the CILS B1-Adolescents test was administered to all students in the class at the beginning of the year and will be resubmitted at the end of the year. All meetings and interviews are recorded (with the consent, also of the pupils' parents) and transcribed verbatim. The qualitative analysis methodology is inspired by grounded theory and will attempt to triangulate data from observations, interviews, focus groups, meeting transcripts, and questionnaires/tests.

The contribution aims to illustrate the research design and the first results of the path undertaken, which offer a snapshot of the classroom climate (15 observations carried out by the researcher so far; research diaries written by the educators) and of competence in Italian L2 at the beginning of the year (results of the CILS test). Here we will also discuss the co-designing process between researchers and teachers, which in the first 3 meetings (September, October, and January) involved the construction of both the PP model and the tool for observing the pupils. These first results reveal the complexity of a class that appears to be emblematic of the problems that teachers are facing in this transitional society, which seems to require a rethinking of the formal school model in the light of alternative and non-formal experiences. The analysis of the co-design process will bring to light the teachers' representations of the student considered to be "at risk" and the educational methods considered to be effective in dealing with high school drop-out situations. In general, the classroom climate suffers from the frustration of teachers, who do not know how to deal with pupils' behavioural problems and resort to disciplinary measures. Pupils struggle to achieve a good level of attention and need to be continually motivated. The degree of autonomy is also very low. The learning results and competences in Italian are on the low end. In terms of engagement, involvement in practical work seems to give better results. The presence of the educators is well appreciated by the teachers, who begin to rely on their expertise to manage conflicts and contain inappropriate behaviour. The educators also support activities by individualising learning. The need emerges to orient the Professional Development towards topics related to conflict management, formative assessment and laboratory teaching.

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