Our PAST represents our FUTURE Erasmus Project

Project Title

Our PAST represents our FUTURE

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Environment and climate change; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

In the project ‘Our past represents our future’ schools from Spain, Lithuania, Denmark and the Netherlands work together in order to prepare students for their futures. Students are aged approximately 13-16 years old and have (at least) an A2 level of English. We aim to select different students for each mobility, so as many students as possible can go abroad.
The main objectives for our students are entrepreneurship, competences in the English language, inclusion and tolerance, (international) collaboration / collaborative learning, ICT skills / digital skills and cultural heritage. These objectives are also linked to the schools’ curriculums.
Our main goal is preparing students for their futures by letting them develop relevant skills to thrive in the future. We’ve integrated past, present and future in our project, by integrating awareness of cultural heritage and sustainability. By intertwining concrete and abstract goals, both will become more comprehensible for students. By working together they will learn to accept and tolerate cultural differences and discover similarities.
In order to increase their entrepreneurship we have integrated several important (21st century) skills in our project. These will be intertwined into the preparation, the mobilities and the dissemination. Examples are creative thinking, creating and promoting sustainable products (e.g. use of social media, building websites/blogs, creating videos), holding elevator pitches and – of course – working together internationally. Students will also learn to organise an event in order to learn how to work with budgets, deadlines and plans. By maintaining a portfolio, students will actively work on their personal goals and will reflect on what they’ve learnt.
The project will be carried out in English. Students will work in mixed groups. By actively communicating and working together during the project, our students will improve their skills in the English language (speaking, listening, reading, writing). All materials teachers and students develop will be in English.
We want our students to have an open mind towards others. We have seen that staying in host families and making students cooperate internationally is key to achieving this goal. We will also raise awareness in order to strengthen their knowledge and promote a change in attitude. Students will have to evaluate on different topics in order to make them aware of their positive changes in attitude towards other cultures. Organising cultural events also promotes their citizenship.
During the project, students will have to (learn to) use different digitals skills and tools in preparation and during the mobilities. We make sure students will have to actively use their (new) knowledge and skills in order to achieve the goals (making videos, finding information on the internet, etc.) )
By linking the past to the future and making sure students produce a product (artwork, video, etc.) students will actively learn more about each other’s cultural heritage
The topic linked to cultural heritages are Sports&games, traditional food, art and literature. During each mobility, there will be one central theme. This will be linked to a sustainable future by creating knowledge and raising awareness about eco-friendly alternatives.
Students will be selected based on their motivation. Our aim is to select different students for each mobility, so as many students as possible will have theopportunity of abroad. We also aim to involve as many teachers as possible, so it won‘t be the same teachers go abroad over and over again.
During the mobilities, students will actively work together in mixed groups. They will also gain more knowledge and awareness by going to museums. They will actually link the past (their cultural background) and the future by creating modernised (eco-friendly) products. Students will also learn to organise real events for real people: in each country students will organise a cultural events for elderly, children or refugees. This also promotes citizenship.
In this project students actively work on their personal development by creating a portfolio which not only includes the project‘s objectives, but will be personalised by actively setting up their personal goals as well so they work on developing relevant skills and knowledge for their future education and/or career.
The project‘s results will be shared through several media, including a public project website and a Twinspace on eTwinning. Teachers make sure the developed materials (mostly about entrepreneurship, cultural heritage, sustainability) can be reused in years to come and are accessible for other teachers.
During the project, students work on specific goals and on their personal development through portfolios. We want to evaluate this way of working and will present the results to the school boards in order to investigate if this is something that can be implemented in schools (or specific subjects).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 109171,2 Eur

Project Coordinator

Commanderij College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Alytus Piliakalnis progymnasium
• Hyllehøjskolen
• Colegio San Antonio María Claret