PATHS of EUROPE Erasmus Project

Project Title

PATHS of EUROPE

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Health and wellbeing; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

“Paths Of Europe” has been an association of four Secondary Schools from four very different countries and locations (A seventy-year-old school in Końskie Poland; a traditional rural school in Terralba, Sardinia (Italy); a big secondary urban school in Hasselt, Belgium and a comprehensive (ESO and VET courses) IES Secondary School in the outskirts of Zaragoza, Spain). We teach a population of approximately 3600 students, hire 450 staff and share common approaches to teaching and methodology. During the project’s lifetime we have kept our common commitment towards improving our quality standards, each of us covering one aspect of our exchange of good practices during local and transnational activities.
THEMES:
Our project’s main theme has been Active Tourism and both students and teachers have been using a CLIL approach. We have also covered transversal concepts about entrepreneurship and a sense of early vocational education towards such qualifications and skills as Outdoor Education, Guidance in Outdoor Activities and a strong bias on the notions of Health, Wellbeing, Social Inclusion and Accessibility in the natural world.
Bilingualism (CLIL) and the Pedagogical principles of “Learning by doing” in international mixed teams were the cornerstones of our Methodology. Group Work through the use of a rational use of ICT’s have been our outputs. This transversal innovative approach is where our name, Paths of Europe, derived from.
As for the use of ICT tools we have to highlight the following:
-3D printers,
-eTwinning
– dedicated websites
– traditional software: Word processors, Power Pont, Kahoot, Vimeo, QrCodes, Drone filming,
– Adobe
– Premier Pro
AIMS:
We have shared school content in order to visualize the potential of learning a trade and the possibility of living in many different languages; we have noticed that the project has cotributed to developing a sense of entrepreneurship in participants by observing active examples of bilingual activites and how a part of these initiatives can be dealt with online.
We practiced and achieved these competences:
increasing literacy in the use of online work-platforms (eTwinning as an online project );
entrepreneurial skills;
higher degree of bilingualism (all participants have had to switch languages without resorting to so much translation).
a notorious degree of enthusiasm and commitment with curricula. The subjects involved were: Foreing Languages, Physical Education, Geography, History of Art, History, ICT,
We have helped participants embrace the idea that Vocational Training is an option after their Compulsory Education period at our schools. Our work provided our students with wider horizons as far as employability and academic compliance are concerned.
WORK PROCESS:
All the tasks were agreed upon by partners, and the role of the coordinator (IES Itaca) consisted of being a moderator; tasks were assigned after being accepted by the teams. Before the project, we discussed all aspects in the Group Forums.
After that, we performed these main activities:
Work for two years under Erasmus+ funding and maintain the eTwinning Project and Group all along project life.
A joint week for Secondary School students in each of the participant schools (four 7-day homestays).
Send and receive students on work placements to several countries in the EU and mix our KA219 project with a VET KA102 project.
Publish project highlights on School’s websites.
Collaborate with the European Institute of Cultural Routes through the Phoenician Route representatives.
Generate a new OER for implementing other school projects similar to our Paths of Europe initiative.
Implement Bilingualism skills in every aspect of school community and, above all, in school curricula.
Two steering project meetings.
RESULTS
Changes in our surrounding areas and improve access for outdoor activities.
We created an Active Tourism Trade Fair in april 2017.
(We included some contents about social inclusion in our VET courses in accordance with the project’s impact on teacher training and students’ involvement).
We created publicity videos, advertising leaflets and brochures for Active Tourism in designated routes or paths.
Symbaloo Lesson Plan
Our most significant item has been a Totem (Signpost) to be built for each of the partner schools.
IMPACT:
We designed this project with the idea providing impact potential for all activities and procedures.
As a result we reached an impact of 100% (3600 students out of 3600) and involved the whole school community within the four partner schools at some time throughout the project lifecycle.
The deepest and most direct kind of impact has been achieved among those students who took part in mobilities but the project involved the whole community in activities:
massive dissemination acts;
selection procedures,
surveys,
publicity,
working meetings,
CLIL lessons,
exhibitions and school trips,
administrative procedures,
organizational changes

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 110460 Eur

Project Coordinator

Instituto Enseñanza Secundaria Ítaca & Country: ES

Project Partners

• II Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Marii Sklodowskiej-Curie w Konskich
• ISTITUTO ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE DE CASTRO
• Humaniora Kindsheid Jesu