"Project ""LET US LEARN TO HELP"" was built on two pillars: an INCLUSION and its ACHIEVEMENT by USE of PRESENCE of ANIMALS at all partner schools. Our experience was that the presence of animals helped to improve physical as well as psychological state of humans. Canistherapy was practised at the veterinary school in the Czech Republic, apitherapy was provided at vocational school in Slovakia and the school in France practiced hipotherapy.There has been an increased interest in people with physical or mental disability in the last decades, which was linked with the effort to improve the physical state and life of people with special needs. Positive effect of animals on the quality of human life is indisputable. We considered inclusion, which was the main pillar of our project, a process related to identification and removal of barriers and an effort to achieve success and happiness of all the children. Professional word for the positive influence of animals on humans is an animal assisted therapy - ANIMOTHERAPY. It reaches into healthcare, social care and education. Animals can be companions in various stages of human life, they can be of help to individuals with issues, they can stimulate for better results and they can heal.Our students worked with animals on daily basis and it made them empathetic, independent, perseverant as well as better and humbler. The skills gained during learning through experience of working with animals led to increased ability of students to help the weaker, ill and disadvantaged. Relationship with animals knows no borders, national differences nor generation gaps. And it was the animals that drew together the partners in this project as well. Our schools provide education for students of various special education needs together with intact students. It was in the interest of each school to provide an education, qualification and practical skills, which would guarantee their employability and satisfaction with the work they do. Individual schools acted as guarantees of certain area of positive animal influence (apitherapy, hipotherapy, canistherapy) and their skills and experience were communicated mutually within the exchange of best practices. The TARGET GROUPS were our teachers, intact students and special needs students, who were an object as well as a subject of project main effort. The children as well as young people with special needs from close vicinity, their parents and lonely people benefited from being involved in the project activities. The project consisted of activities aimed at:1. the TEACHERS – short-term training events for the employees – each school, as a guarantee of one kind of animotherapy, provided the other partners with maximum knowledge and educational resources to enable the partners to teach and used the particular kind of animotherapy in question. 2. the STUDENTS and TEACHERS –blended mobility of students – each school ran one activity for students and teachers from partners‘ schools with the aim to test and amend the educational materials and necessary methods to gain certificates. 3. the students and teachers - within BLENDED MOBILITIES of students in VET– with the aim to verify the skills of students during the work with the children from nursery and primary schools and special needs‘ children, handicapped people and elderly lonely people. The results of the project included vocational preparation of pedagogic team and mutual exchange of best practices with the partners of the project, which took place through educating our students. Students’ satisfaction and success represented the feedback at the same time. The success of this project is connected to the results reached; however, we consider it to go well beyond the testing of educational materials and methods. From the long-term perspective we consider the main OUTCOME of the project the incentive for complex change of mindset and approach of individuals towards the disadvantaged the students with learning disability and the students from socially deprived homes. Animals do not consider their differentness as disturbing and this is something we have learnt from them."

Three high schools in catering and hospitalities , three countries linked to a common thread: gastronomy and European cultural heritage that were decreed earlier , a mobility problem and deleterious school climate. They find that the match between education and employability needs to be improved. Partners who want to participate in other European countries practices, systems and different administrative and educational organization.We examined our difficulties to understand and apprehend the professional world, to find the motivation for their education and their professional training. They also have difficulties to project themselves into a professional mobility outside their region.The project is committed to develop the social, professional and linguistic skills of our students in the field of catering, especially for our most vulnerable and disadvantaged learners.The project also aims to help students to communicate in English and develop the practice of oral language. We seek to identify the obstacles to a positive insertion in the professional environment to promote social inclusion through contact with other cultures and other know-how related to gastronomy and hotels in general. We have also planned to develop remediation tools after observing other practices and methods.Beyond the main objective, we also want to address new skills, communication skills (intercultural, linguistic, digital) and finally promote autonomy and self-confidence.The 3 educational institutions are involved in the project with different issues and working methods. Engaged learners, aged 15 to 18, are all students in the hotel and restaurant sector. 24 pupils per educational institution are involved for the entire project and 12 pupils in each school for mobility. The teaching teams are composed of 5 to 7 people per high school, an administrative and financial team and a steering team in charge of teaching and administrative work composed of 3-4 people.The planned activities will be coordinated through eTwinning, and institutions will work on a common gastronomy project that will allow teams and students to get to know each other. Activities related to the kitchen and service specialties ( in each establishment) will be carried out in each school, as well as activities related to the culture of each of the partners.English will be practiced through activities such as tutorials on professional practices, the production of newsletters, virtual exchanges.In terms of communication and diffusion, the project and the productions will be disseminated through Twinspace, the website created for the project, at information meetings, forums, open day, publication of articles in the press local and official education sites.A coordinator team has been set up in each establishment with a principal interlocutor. Since France is the coordinator of the project, the French interlocutor set up from the beginning regular electronic exchanges to build the project in a collaboration way. These exchanges were reinforced by video-conferences in order to plan the mobilities and activities. Throughout the project each institution has specific responsibilities related to the activities: Italy manages Twinspace, Slovakia the newsletters and France as coordinator ensures that the schedules of activities is respected, and manages the website created for the project.In order to measure the success of the project we will use indicators. That will be compare at the entrance to the training and at the end of the project. For the dropout, we will rely on changes in enrollment between the first year and the last, and the number of sanctions and exclusions. Involvement and success in teaching will be assessed using language placement tests, professional practice or teaching sessions, graduation (through success rate) and prosecution study. The students going abroad for internships or for a job will be compared with current rates. An online questionnaire will be submitted to the entrants on the interest of the project and their desires for mobility. We expect a drop in dropout, better social inclusion, increased skills, validation of language skills via the Europass passport. In the long term the partners will be able to collaborate in order to perpetuate exchanges between institutions through new Erasmus + or eTwinning projects, to obtain the eTwinning quality label, and to spread the European dimension of each establishment.

The schools want to continue with the previous partnership and activities. They intend to increase self-confidence of pupils as an European workers. It is also an action with charity impact, teenagers who dropped out of the school system /clients of Vrakbar/ will work together with those teenagers who are still pupils and maybe the clients of Charity will find again motivation to get back to the school system. The cooperation will improve the social competences and the intercultural understanding of all participants, improving language competence and comparing working methods from which they can benefit in their future employment so that they could become active European citizens and workers.All schools have similar core subjects connected with building industry, all schools have a big group of pupils dealing with specific learning difficulties as the building vocational subjects are supposed to be suitable for pupils with special learning difficulties. Vocational training is often seen as a second choice, the project will contribute to increase the value of pupils in order to raise their attractiveness.It is the second project of 2 schools and the Hungarian school joined us newly, all are willing to continue with the cooperation. During the first project schools prepared furniture for Gipsy children from Charity in Jihlava, in this new project we will involve teenagers participating in charity activities. Objectives:working together on furniture, communication, making compromises, discussing different working approaches – new ideas for being successful- cooperation with charity – meeting young people who have already left the educational system /Střední škola stavební Jihlava rents basement to charity/ - developing knowledge and understanding among young people and educational staff of diversity of culture and learning tolerance to different values . - charity dimension – the furniture – table and chairs is clearly addressed and a very visible end of the project. All involved - learners and young people from charity will be proud of the result of the cooperation, they can show the others – look this is my WORK! - Revising and strengthening the professional profile of the teaching professions – exchanging information, common work, sharing experience, dealing with learners at risk of early school leaving and with low basic skillsCommon work will not be an aim but a tool for a common communication. Learners will produce a table and chairs for a charity institution in Jihlava. Young people from charity will work together with learners. At the end of the project all involved people will sit at the new table and they will discuss the importance of education and possibility to come back to a school system.

In the project Europeans Teaching and Learning Together three schools from Sweden, Slovakia and Turkey work together to elaborate teaching methods, the use of ICT, communicative skills and confidence, pupil’s basic skills in Maths and English and the connection between school work and the society outside school. Schools involved:Stredná odborná škola drevárska, Slovakia: secondary vocational school situated in the eastern part of Slovakia.Mehmet Nazif Gunal Ortaokulu, Turkey: secondary village school situated in the south of Turkey.Storsjögymnasiet, Sweden: upper secondary privately owned school situated in the middle of Sweden.We all have pupils who have a need to develop their basic skills in order to be able to complete their education. Many of these young people feel the need to find a usefulness of their studies connected to the society outside school. We want to make them feel this connection in their lessons in Maths and English. In this way we hope to help them improve their basic skills, help them move on to the more difficult courses and furthermore prevent drop-outs. The educational use of ICT will help us to make the lessons more interesting, more connected to the rest of society and other countries in Europe. Another advantage is to make the pupils more confident in using ICT and Open Educational Resources (OER). We want to learn from each other and to try out new teaching methods which we have read about in modern pedagogical research. We will try out lessons both during the visits planned at the different schools and through the Internet by using Skype and other communicative resources. Staff and pupils will evaluate the new teaching methods together. In this way we want pupils and teachers to become more confidant when working together in planning and evaluations.Objectives in short: - Develop new teaching methods, through exchange of experiences and by trying out new methods from modern research. Try out methods and learn to evaluate together both the pupils and the staff involved. - Develop teaching methods connected to ICT and OER. - Develop teaching methods which are connecting school work to the society outside school.- Help pupils gain better basic skills in Maths and English.- Help pupils gain better communicative confidence and skills. - Help pupils learn good manners when communicating through social media.- Prevent early drop-outs.- Make pupils more willing to learn more about European people and cultures.- Develop democratical methods to plan and evaluate teaching including both teachers and pupils.The target groups are the pupils, teachers and headmasters in the three schools in the three countries. All pupils who study English and all pupils who study maths in their first year in the upper secondary schools (Sweden and Slovakia) will be involved when starting up the project. In Turkey all the 14-year olds will be involved.Involved staff in the three schools:Two English teachers, two maths teachers and the headmaster from Sweden.One English teacher, one maths teacher and the headmaster from Turkey.One English teacher, one maths teacher, one ICT teacher and the headmaster from Slovakia.All the results and experiences will be spread to other teachers, pupils and staff in all three schools but also to other schools and organisations. A group of pupils and teachers will visit each school and during the visits we will try out different teaching methods and plan and evaluate the project along the way. During these visits the methods will be evaluated among teachers and pupils. Between the visits the communication between the pupils will also be carried out through Facebook, Skype and Lync. We will also try out online teaching and lessons when pupils from the different schools cooperate over Skype and Lync.The contact and the cooperation between the schools and the teachers will continue after the EU funded project. We will continue to exchange teaching methods, experiences and to discuss school development issues. In addition we will continue the Internet based projects with pupils from the different schools and if possible continue to meet in real life. The contact persons will be responsible to maintain the cooperation after the project. Expected results:- new teaching methods ready to use, including methods connected to ICT and OER- new teaching methods ready to use, connecting school work to the society outside school- pupils more confident in basic skills in maths and English- pupils more confident and skilled in communicating- pupils more interested in European people and cultures- pupils more aware of the importance of good manners in social media- new democratical methods to plan and evaluate teaching including both teachers and pupils- fewer early drop-outs - better results in national tests in maths and English- publication about experiences and new teaching methods to be spread to other teachers and schools

"The goal of the ""Caterers On The Run"" project is to further strengthen the key competencies of students in initial and continuous VET education through the development of strategic partnerships, develop professional competencies of vocational teachers in VET education and support the establishment and internationalization of the implementation of VET strategies.Hospitality is a branch of the economy of every state, that has been globally continuously and rapidly developing in the past decade. Therefore, hospitality educational profiles are increasingly in demand, however, in most cases, education programs for these professions do not follow the demands of the labor market at sufficient speed. For these reasons, there is a need to strengthen the key competencies of basic and continuing vocational education through additional training.The result of this project, ""Caterers On The Run"", is to develop a handbook describing the steps of catering business as a part of hospitality industry with a growing demand.Three schools of vocational education are involved in the project, the Secondary School of Economics Sombor from Serbia, as the project coordinator, AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS DE BARCELOS from Portugal and the Stredna Odborna Skola from Slovakia as strategic partners in the project.All three schools have some of the key competencies necessary for the development of the ""Caterers On The Run"", manual, and through the implementation of their basic and practical knowledge, they can train the other two schools and draw up a segment of handbooks from their field of competence.Thus, the Srednja ekonomska škola Sombor has the task of preparing educational materials of the segment of cookery and serving, the Stredna Odborna Skola segment of bakery and confectionery while AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS DE BARCELOS prepares educational material of the entrepreneurial segment in the catering business.Implementation of the project implies a number of activities that lead to the ultimate result- the development of the""Caterers On The Run"" manual - such as: selecting project team members, project team meetings, market analysis, gathering necessary information, creating work materials, training members of project teams by segments of catering services , practical application of a type of catering service, preparation of manual materials, final drafting of manuals in printed and electronic form, creation and updating of the website with information on the project, informing the public about the result of the project through the media, the Internet and the conference.The expected results of the project are to strengthen and improve the competence of teachers of professional subjects in the schools of catering and entrepreneurial profiles, to enable pupils through additional education to acquire knowledge and skills that will facilitate them and provide better chances for finding a job or starting their own businesses, reduce the gap in supply and demand in the labor market, and provide information on catering services to organizations and institutions whose interests are education, hospitality, entrepreneurship and legislation.Also, the joint implementation of the project with the schools from Portugal and Slovakia enables the introduction of different cultural characteristics, the development of language competences and the establishment of long-term cooperation at the international level."