This project was founded on the belief that the school should encourage students’ holistic development and that it should go beyond subject boundaries and school curriculum. Our aim was to provide students with a range of inspiring activities which developed children’s responsibility, active citizenship, sense of initiative, awareness of social issues, both local and global. We formed a team of 6 primary schools from Poland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Turkey, Italy and Spain and more than 300 teachers and 5000 students who participated in a full range of social, cultural, artistic and sporting activities that established a sense of self-belief and the confidence to set aspirational goals. The schools started or reformulated school parliaments and their schedules, charity events obtained a modern and effective forms (Sport Relief event, Penny Fairs), students' creative writing was collected into the book “A Day in My School Life”, students created work of arts inspired by a national artist (“How to be Van Gogh”), searched the past and engaged their grandparents to play “Good Old Games”, the schools found inspiration and extended their offer of cultural and educational activities by introducing other partners' ideas taken from our “The Highlights of the Month” online magazine where we shared school events; students learned management skills and organized a school trip “Inspirational Travels”, they also organized a protest event against food waste on World Food Day, and exhibited their photos of Same and Different project- during the short term pupils exchanges students used the idea of participating photography and took photos of the place through the eyes of local people and looked for similarities and photographed them. Active membership in a school parliament gave students better understanding of democracy, a sense of responsibility and influence on bigger community; supporting a charity foundation developed their generosity of spirit and compassion; the artistic projects built students' appreciation of European culture and arts; organizing a school trip improved their management skills and increased team spirit. All the project activities were carefully selected to make the most of rich diveristy of participating countries. By exchanging the outputs of the project students got a big insight into everyday lives of the Europeans, their values, culture and traditions. 51 students crossed the borders and personally experienced the reality of their European peers while visiting their homes and schools, they also exchanging traditional letters. Cooperating with other European schools was a valuable experience of working in the intercultural and multilingual environment and motivated students for the high quality performance. Both students and parents have expressed their interest in the next Erasmus project and look forward to participating in creating a new project.

‘Big Issues in Small Hands’ is the project whose key belief is the conviction that future starts today and that our students will soon have to face the relevant matters of everyday life. The project make them realize that they can actively participate in the life of school and local community and that their initiative matters. Now the core of their interests is school, sport, arts and crafts, computers. Thanks to our project they will understand how these can be used as effective tools dealing with global issues such as politics, profession, business, charity, interests and free time.Our partnership consists of six elementary and secondary schools. Some schools are small and located in small villages, other are situated in big cities. The coordinating Czech school is the Regional Consulting Centre for School Parliaments. The Greek school promotes healthy diet and local products. Tartu International School in Estonia values co-operation and parental involvement and multicultural awareness. The Polish school’s objectives foster students talents and potentials. The French support charity and work for Burkina Faso. The students of Kumport Secondary School in Istanbul achieve numerous success in national sport competitions. By taking active part in the school parliament our students will develop democratic attitude and the skill of decision making in the school environment. The unique possibility of collaborating with the parliaments of partner schools will give the students a sense of unity and importance. Thanks to organizing and participating in charity events (‘Sports Relief’ or the auctions of their crafts) the students will develop empathy and learn how to use their skills and talents to help the ones in need. We also intend to raise students’ self-confidence by making posters ‘The Best Product Me’ and emphasize the link between today's education and future professional success. The workshops with the bank ‘All about Money’ will improve the children’s finance management and give them an opportunity to use it in practice while organizing a school trip. An important part of our project is not only to discover new things about other countries, but to teach children about local traditions within their own countries. By self-discovery of traditional stories, popular games and local artistry, traditional food students can take the responsibility of teaching their culture to other students across Europe. And most of all, we wish the activities are not only educational but enjoyable. We believe that our project will provide our children with a unique and memorable opportunity to make lifelong friendships while visiting other countries, communicating in English and working with children the same age in different parts of Europe.