Get ready for take-off – Next stop: Europe! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Get ready for take-off – Next stop: 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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Cooperation between educational institutions and business

Project Summary

As international mobility becomes more and more important in a globalized world and a unified Europe our schools strongly encourage students to gather (working) experience abroad. Both schools offer different international programmes to their students for instance student exchanges or the Erasmus+ programme.
Furthermore, Hellweg School offers students the opportunity to take part in an international placement in Italy in Padua. This international placement came into being after successfully participating in the Comenius programme “Rough Guide to my Future in Europe” together with the secondary school I.I.S. Rolando da Piazzola in Padua, Italy from 2013-2015. Aim of this project was to prepare students for a future working environment in the European Union outside their home country. After having finished this project successfully we were happy to establish a partnership with the school in Padua, in which we agreed to give students from both countries the possibility to gather working experience abroad. Since we are a Certified European school this placement is also part of our school programme.
However, we have realized that many students hesitate to take these opportunities, especially the international placement as decisive aspect of Hellweg School. Students’ concerns are about spending time abroad without their friends or families.
In order to find out about obstacles that might keep students from going abroad we want to launch this project, adding to our “Rough Guide to my Future in Europe”. This time we do not want to focus on professional skills and working environment only but also deal with the students’ real worries and concerns that come to their mind when they think about living in another country. This project is to cover the aspects that were not covered in our previous project: everyday life abroad.
Thus, aim of this project is to identify the students concerns and worries by issuing questionnaires, conducting surveys, evaluating them and eventually issuing a reader or pamphlet helping students who are making the decision to gather work or schooling experience abroad to cope with possible problems. The focus of this project is not to focus on international job applications or admission to universities in the first place, but to identify general obstacles and discomforts when going abroad, such as:
– Why should I go abroad anyway?
– How does public transportation work in the other country?
– Where can I live during my stay?
– When I stay with a host family (as for instance during the placement in Italy) what are cultural characteristics that I need to be informed about?
– What kind of behaviour am I supposed to show?
– Do I need to open a bank account (long term stays)
– etc.
These are only possible questions and are to be modified according to the students’ needs and ideas. The plan of this project is to find experts after the students have identified possible issues who will be interviewed to help find solutions for these issues. Possible interview partners can be parents, company representatives, students who have gathered experience abroad either in a vocational or educational environment. The interviews will be prepared by the hosting schools and then be conducted together during the international meetings. Furthermore during the international meetings the visiting groups will identify cultural characteristics that the students consider worth mentioning when talking to potential participants in an exchange programme to inform them about the corresponding country.
Thus, the Greek and German students will issue readers or pamphlets that are to support the students who are taking the final step of taking part in an international programme without being backed by their friends or accompanying teachers.
Since our placements are taking place in grade 10, we want to target younger students to sensitize them for the upcoming placement. Therefore we decided to run the project with students from grade 8 to grade 10, being aged 13 to 15 years. Thus they can have first international experience in an international project in a protected area, however, they will feel better prepared to cope with such situations when going abroad by themselves.
Since we are planning to issue a reader and to share the final products of this Erasmus+ project with our school community, all students of our schools will profit from this programme. Moreover we plan to set up a cooperation in the future between the 1st Junior High School of Pefka and Hellweg School after we will have closed this project successfully. Such a potential cooperation will focus on vocational experience in terms of an international placement or internship and shall not be limited to students participating in this project but open to all students attending our schools. This international placement, however, is not part of this Erasmus+ programme but planned as a follow up.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 55192 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hellweg-Schule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• 1st Junior High School of Pefka