Lycée Santos-Dumont (St-Cloud, France), IES Heliopolis (Sevilla, Spain) and Jelgava vocational school (Latvia) have been involved for a long time in the process of opening onto Europe. Lycée Santos-Dumont helped Jagava vocational school to develop his training restaurant. Every year, the two schools organize student exchanges. The coordinator of the strategic partnership projet has himself developed strong ties with IES Heliopolis in Spain thanks to his participation in two staff mobilities organized by the European Ressources Center of the Academy of Versailles The projet was built around the creation of delicatessen pop-up shops with 3 vocational High schools in 3 european countries : France, Latvia and Spain. The purpose of the projet was dual : a- It aimed at implementing an exchange of practices between educational establishments of the European Union around the question of the decompartmentalization of the careers available in vocational schools. Through a work towards a common educational target and the sharing of referentials, the teams willed to build a bridge between the economy / management and the catering (service) departments in each of the participating schools. This bridge allowed the students to feel a coherence between the different teachings. It also helped them understand their meanings. b- It also aimed at allowing some secondary school students who have little access to european mobility (students from underprivileged families, students with learning difficulties) to enjoy new opportunities. To conclude, the projet aimed at preventing students, often fragile and risking failure, from dropping out of school. It’s the reason why the participants were not students registered in programs such as Erasmus+ key 1. They were all taking a level 5 degree, and others were serving an apprenticeship. The activities were centered around the setting and the running of a delicatessen pop-up shop in each of the 3 participating schools. The shops all saled typical products of the 3 countries. Some of the products were home made in the kitchens of the catering department of each school. 3 mobilities were planned to enable students and teachers to work within the schools, on the projet and on educational differentiated methods. Everything was made in respect of a progression settled according to the school referentials of the 3 countries. The whole projet was conducted according to a methodology alterning video-conferences and physical encounters between partners, students and teachers: – a first meeting took place in Latvia with French (14) and Spanish (8) participants during the second term of 2017 – a second meeting took place in Spain with French (14) and Latvian (8) participants during the first term of the second year – a third meeting took place in France with Spanish (8) and Latvian (8) participants during the third term of the second year At the end of each week of mobility, a festive event was held around the delicatessen pop-up shop to conclude the visit of the partners At the very end of the projet, a gastronomic meeting of the 3 participating schools was organized on the occasion of a larger gathering involving all Versailles Academy catering schools. The exchanges between schools were reinforced during transnational meetings as they provided great opportunities to share information on the progress of work in each of the schools, to refine the projet, to organize the shops, to think together over the issue of costs and sells and to organize the different events in the participating countries. 3 transnational meetings were held at key moments. The expected impacts concerned the educational methods of teachers which became more coherent and more understandable by all students. The expected impacts also dealed with the will to prevent students from failing to keep up and to help all students succeed. The results were evaluated thanks to a close study of the ability teachers, to make referentials meet, to improve students school attendance and students ability to achieve better concentration within the classroom. Finally the teams checked the evolution of exam passing. The results obtained were shared between the educational teams of each schools, between the 3 participating schools, the partners and national boards of education of the 3 countries. On the long run, this projet reinforced within each participating schools, essential elements of success for the students coming up against the most serious difficulties: – educational expertise – european anchoring – belonging to a network of local, national and international partnerships.

"<< Background >>The project is the result of a long-term collaboration between partners who exchanged in the past good practices in the field of Education from level 3 to 5. In the current context of growing concurrence in the professional market, VET students need to upgrade their intercultural skills to value their professional training for a market that is driven by multiculturalism and high quality and big scale events. However, as VET students and apprentices from group at risk of exclusion, they have less opportunities than students from general training to experience a mobility and to work in an intercultural environment. In this line, the need to provide an international programme that is integrated to partners educative pathway and certifications in a collaborative way is seen as essential. For that, the framework of collaboration, educative approach -offline and online- and the training of beneficiaries -VET professors and teachers- is crucial and are aspects addressed in Un dîner au château project. The aim is to strengthen the tools and instruments to facilitate mobility in Europe and support young people in their personal project and in their professional and personal future as EU citizens. The aim of student mobility is indeed to help learners to better master the chosen profession, to develop their professional competences, knowledge, skills and competences with the support of selected partner organizations, giving them the opportunity to become acquainted with new working methods and techniques, as well as unknown technologies. This will increase the level of knowledge of the learners and will allow students to better understand the chosen profession. The work experience gained will make a significant contribution to their personal development and career development in real dinners with high quality and multicultural approach. This project will contribute to develop intercultural exchanges and promotes the international openness of students, improving their English listening and speaking skill.<< Objectives >>Thus, the general objective is to develop VET learners’ and students inter-connected skills to boost professional empowerment for career growth and personal future as EU citizens. And the subobjective to reach this general objective are: 1. Combine professional (hotel-Hospitality and Gastronomy) and general (Cultural heritage-history, applied arts and English) disciplines with ecological practices as transversal subject through un dîner au château training approach. 2. Raising awareness on learners about the common European culture through architectural heritage and gastronomy with the visit of castles and the organisation of gala dinners in the three partner countries. 3. Provide a framework to promote quality mobility of VET staff and learners with automatic mutual recognition of qualifications to obtain their educative-professional certificate. 4. Connect vocational high school students, VET learners and students by promoting professional integration and open up prospects for further studies, from level 3 to level 4 (Upper secondary education (ISCED level 3) to Post-secondary non-tertiary education (ISCED 4)), and from level 4 to level 5 (Short-cycle tertiary education (ISCED 5) towards Bachelor's or equivalent -ISCED 6-). 5. Allow access to mobility and European openness to a public which is far from it (vocational students outside the European section, apprentices, persons with disabilities).<< Implementation >>The general objective of Un dîner au château project will be achieved by the specific implementation of activities linked to the sub-objectives which are: • A “Facilitator training programme on the castle's dinner approach” that provides work student-centred based learning as part of the innovation in educative blended experience (linked to sub-objective 1). • Provide clear instruments -inclusive digital tools- 2.0 digital castle's dinner approach that will improve the performance of beneficiaries and therefore VET learners and students into a European perspective for professional growth and personal empowerment; as part of the transformation of the professional path (linked to sub-objective 4 and 5). • To provide work-based learning EU level spaces to detect best practices ""A castle's dinner best practices handbook"" as part of Internationalisation strategies for VET providers (linked to sub-objective 2 and 3). Three mobilities of VET learners and students will complement the pedagogical work prepared in the previous activities. These mobilities will give students the opportunity to learn in an intercultural environment the educational content on the different Castle dinner’s topics and to strengthen their professional skills through the preparation of a castle dinner at the end of each mobility. These dinners will be organised as dissemination events and thus give the students the opportunity to test their knowledge and their competencies. It will promote the students’ results to a wider audience of VET learners, teachers, institutions and stakeholders. Another mobility will be organised for the VET teachers in order to foster collaboration and develop the digital tools for the castle dinner approach. The project will end with a final pedagogical conference presenting all the project’s results to a wider audience in VET and Pedagogy fields.<< Results >>The results are: 1.- A “Facilitator training programme on the castle's dinner approach”. This first Project Result will provide the educational content for the VET learners blended experiences in the different mobilities. 2.- “2.0 digital castle's dinner approach"": It is a complete and coherent digital support prior to mobilities, to initiate the integration of beneficiaries and target groups. It includes 5 online learning sessions with activities for European collaboration and pedagogical digital guidelines. 3.- ""A castle's dinner best practices handbook"": it will combine best practices from the Un dîner au château approach and comparison between the first student mobility and the other two after the digital support is implemented. 4.- 4 International training activities: a) Dinner at Rundalé castle international training with 11 teachers and at least 30 students involved. b) Castle’s dinner Training of VET Professionals with 8 VET teachers and professors, c) Dinner at Villa Olmo international training with 11 teachers and at least 30 students involved. d) Dinner at Versailles castle international training with 11 teachers and at least 30 students involved. 5. 4 Multiplier events (workshops and final conference) a) to present project results; b) to have a demonstration of the project results and assess them -e.g. final master piece venue-; c) to invite Stakeholders to join the project for future initiatives; d) to bring together an international community of scholars and practitioners in a forum setting. e) to open opportunities for discussion on practices in applications of blended digital learning, with a special focus on gastronomy and interdisciplinarity, will be enhanced by the project Consortium. 3 Master pieces final accreditation that are in the frame of gala dinner where Students will elaborate and coordinate the dinners to invited guests, at least 160 guests in total. Co-financed by Partners, associates and VET Stakeholders. Intangible results are: • Increased opportunities for the personal and professional development of teachers through more attractive and innovative enacted-based approaches that are in line with teachers’ real-life needs and expectations; • Building upon digital teacher education readiness and strengthening teachers’ responsiveness, adaptability, and flexibility towards future educational crisis; • Greater understanding and responsiveness towards high quality inclusive digital education to promote education for all; • Evaluation of Un dîner au château approach to collect evidence for the analysis and evaluation of the approach; • The enrichment of the VET curricula with the proposed learning objects and scenarios. • Exchange of ideas and good practices between the participating in the execution of all the planned activities; • Increased experience in teacher education via learner-centered based approaches and raise awareness among the participants, participating organizations, stakeholders, and EU decisionmakers, at national, local, and European Levels; • Promote future initiatives to improve educators’ skills and address impact on education through the use of Un dîner au château approach."

<< Background >>This project was initiated following the commitment of 3 of the 4 partners to the European Apprenticeship Ambassador pilot project initiated by Mr. Jean Arthuis, MEP. The tremendous momentum to promote the possibility of long-term mobility in the apprenticeship training curriculum was to continue. MFR Saint Michel Mont Mercure, AFOL Como and Krudy Vocational High School in Hungary, long-standing partners, wish together to promote their vocational training schools and, more specifically, their European initiatives by extending their training programmes with an international focus. To do this, partner Jelgavas Amatu Vidusskola from Latvia, a historic partner of AFOL Como, joined this small group. The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted existing patterns, particularly in terms of training, employment, and has had a significant impact on the mobility supported by the Erasmus+ program. Hotels and restaurants, bakeries and pastry shops, sectors shared by all participants in the project, are really suffering, and even more today, from a lack of trained, competent, adaptable and multilingual staff. Lockdowns, successive restaurant closures, isolation, have accentuated the negative image of this sector of activity and employees have left their posts for fear of the job insecurity experienced this past year. It seems to us that it is essential today to move forward and to revitalize and upgrade the jobs and vocational trainings related to these sectors. For example, in France, more than 90,000 jobs are to be filled in the catering industry for the summer of 2021. At the same time, the numerous reforms of the professional path in Europe are challenging current systems and schemes. The reform of apprenticeship in France and Hungary, the Italian and Latvian desire to increase the number of apprentices, This led us to reflect on a European partnership project which would meet the expectations and guidelines of the different national contexts and which would also meet the needs of these companies. The modularisation of pathways and the validation of formal, informal and non-formal skills are at the heart of our project. The European mobility of apprentices or alternance students consolidates, supports our common desire to learn differently. The mobility of young people brings not only professional skills but also skills of openness, culture, languages and respect, essential skills to create a strong and shared European identity and support an active and effective Europe of Education. In this sense, we are convinced that offering mobility training within Vocational Training Centres can only add to the attractiveness of integrating such training and thus enable professionals to employ adaptable and competent employees.<< Objectives >>Following a finding shared by the members of the partnership, the vocational training system in Europe needs to improve its image and above all to offer attractive and quality training. The educational system of alternance and the internationalisation of its training offers appear as strategic levers of development. The project will concern the catering and bakery-pastry sectors, common sectors to the members of the partnership, which, by its intrinsic characteristics, have a strong predisposition to staff mobility in international contexts but are currently suffering from successive lockdowns and repeated closures. Hiring professionals alongside us will enable us to support the strong need to involve all actors in the training of young people.<< Implementation >>With this application, we want to design and develop a modular international training course around oeno-gastronomy. This school/company training will take place in the different partners countries : Italy, Hungary, Latvia and France. The participants will have the opportunity to discover and understand 4 different oeno-gastronomies and learning English will be another objective. The first expected result will therefore be the development of the training plan itself. The second expected outcome is the development of competency grids and certification tools. It seems to us necessary, in a third stage, to train professionals in the pedagogy that we wish to develop so that they better understand the expectations and the role they have to play in the transmission of know-hows and knowledge , so that they understand more concretely the role of pedagogue that they have to hold. Alternance is built up through a close and trusting relationship between training centres and professional circles. Finally, our greatest wish would be for this training to be recognized by the certifying bodies of the four partners countries. We aim at the recognition of this new training and wish to raise awareness among funders, professionals or academics to participate in the cost for training centres.<< Results >>The expected results of this project primarily concern the 4 vocational training centres. At a time when the professional path is changing and profoundly disrupted by the pandemic, this strong and shared willingness to build together an adapted and European training, will show the dynamism, the optimism and strength of proposals from professional institutions. Highly open to others and the world, the system of alternance training offers a new and relevant face that meets the expectations of the world of work. This partnership project will highlight the willingness of European training centres to meet the training needs of the local, national and European territory. This project aims above all to enhance the professional path system and will demonstrate that it is a path of excellence leading to employment! Fully involving professional actors in this project will also make it possible to create this fundamental link between schools, training centres and the world of work. Aware that the professional path cannot evolve without putting these two actors in direct relation, French, Hungarian, Italian and Latvian professionals will then be able to better consider and consider the essential role they have in the training of future generations.