In our model of society, the fact that students leave compulsory Secondary school without getting the required degree does not only affect their academic world, but also their whole life, since it limits their future options both relating to work or social setting, which may have significant deleterious consequences.Nowadays the Secondary School Certificate is necessary for the students so that they can continue the post-compulsory stage of Schooling (Further Education or Vocational Studies) and it also encourages a better social integration in a society involved in a process of technological evolution. Consequently, our future citizens must be educated by designing a curriculum that promotes innovative and integrated open-minded ways of thinking about education – as it is said in Delors report -learning to know, to do and to live together.The values, the self-building of identity or the integrated development of the whole person as individuals and basic competences to acquire the background which is the keystone for successful learning.Reaching this point, the most important competence is reading:the reading competence contributes to understand a tale or a poem, a philosophical or scientific text, the formulation of a problem, basic instructions or any other way of explanation on the Internet. Reading allows us the access to all kinds of knowledge. According to this reflection, we can understand that the development of linguistic skills needs to be supplemented with the mastering of the new communicative strategies, which are currently adapted to the existing codes and languages in different scientific and technological contexts.Our first aim is to find a way of being motivating. For that reason we are going to create a READING AND SEARCHING CLUB based on the use of new technologies along with different interdisciplinary proposals with the clear purpose to avoid an early drop out of school by expanding forms of participation in school relevant activities and by promoting some basic competences - linguistic communicative competence,. mathematical competence, knowledge of and interaction with the physical world, competence in information and communication technologies, social and civil competence, cultural and artistic competence, the competence of learning to learn and the competence of personal autonomy and initiative . Therefore, we have decided to change our schoolrooms into a workshop where students will acquire these skills by reading, writing, researching and experiencing continuously. The fundamental pillar of the CLUB will be the development of researching on the net so that the students will be able to obtain meaningful learning.We will start analyzing two main aspects: the sociological context for European teenagers and the presence of science in our daily life. Both aspects enable us to develop motivation, comprehension skills, experimentation, critical analysis, the handling of information and digital competence in a deeper way. We will create a CLUB which will be considered as the learning core with the implication of both several social and educational agents from our area, as well as from other different countries.Organizing regular meetings with different people and institutions will stimulate our students to participate in a collective action related to their education.This project works toward poor-motivated students of 4º ESO (4th course of secondary school) and they will be coordinated by two teachers from the Spanish Language department and one from the Information Technology one.We expect to improve students' academic standard and encourage self motivation and being pro-active with this project. We have a reading and investigation club which is fortnightly meeting in each country and we have another Club, which is international and the meetings will be held via Skype every month to share the investigations.The outcomes of our work comprising the analysis of the texts and the researching work made by the students will become a methodological guidance which will be published on a multilingual web site, on the European Union platform.The aim of this project is to decrease the number of school failure of our students that may begin in the earliest grades, as well as to improve the basic competences and the learning of a foreign language. Furthermore, we expect to maximize a participation-identification model focused on students’ “involvement in schooling”, with both behavioral and emotional components, which may culminate in a more successful and satisfactory academic status.The whole educational community will profit from this experience as it concerns the whole Europe. The number of institutions and schools involved are the reason why this project will benefit a wide range of students.The participant instutions are High School Zaidin-Vergeles y Parque de las Ciencias de Granada ,Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy,Norway, Slovenia and Poland. Both private and public schools are involved.

'Practical Skills Matter' is an Erasmus+ project realised by five secondary schools from NL, IT, RO, PL and GR for students between 12 and 17 years old. We are questioning the function of schools as the starting point. Are schools providing enough fulfillment for real life or not? Are schools enough to gain basic skills for professional life or not? Are schools teaching requirements for being successful after school life or not? Do schools develop individuals enough to have self-esteem, self-confidence or not? Do schools teach moral values enough or not? Are schools the place where citizens get education for their specific talents or not? And most importantly; are schools able to provide a real education which transform theoretical knowledge into practical behavior or not? Conclusions:-Schools have lack of activities in term of what we really need in real life.-Theoretical lessons don't improve practical and social skills -Practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge are both important phases of learning. Perfect combination of both practical and theoretical methods is necessary for real learning.Learning in most of our schools is now for a great percentage limited to classrooms. We want to expand learning outside the classroom, outside our schools, outside our cities and beyond the borders of the countries in Europe, in real life situations.Our project focussed on creating/developing practical materials/ activities/real situations for the theoretical knowledge that is given in school curricula. We aimed to connect both types of knowledge and provide real learning.Activities to achieve this:1. Every school changed lessons from their own curriculum from mostly theoretical lessons to more practical lessons. In some of the schools whole new courses were introduced and implemented. During the meetings and at the end of the project we exchanged our new lessons by a joined website so our partners and others can copy the lessons and use them. 2. We also planned extracurricular activities. 3. We organised three transnational meetings with students. We worked on this objectives: -Creating an active, happy and fruitful learning environment inside/outside the classes-Providing real learning and changing our curricula by adding more practical education -Preventing lack of basic skills -developing our students self-confidence, independence, social and basic skills and (European) citizenshipWorking both transnational as interdisciplinary was an added value of this project. Transnationality was also a must as every exchange will be a way of development of the skills and competences aimed in the project. Students practiced on an international level. Teachers observed good practices in host schools. This project made our activities not only interdisciplinary, but also cross-educational, multi cultural and cross-national which gave this project an extra European dimension and broadened mutual understanding and increased the learning effects. Our cooperation strengthenen the quality of our education.The results and impact of the project mainly consist all the new developed practical lessons and activities. They are exchanged with the partner schools and any other who is interested through a common website. The long term benefits are the fact that we proceed offering these lessons and courses and activities in our schools to improve the quality of our education and to keep reaching the objectives we have for our current and future students.Besides these results it had also a great impact on students: they developed more practical skills, they developed more self-confidence and social and basic skills for citizenship. Learning by doing created also more fun and pleasure and adventures. Also the skills and motivation amongst teachers improved. Through this project we proved: Practical Skills Matter! In many, many ways!

"<< Background >>Inclusion has become a global challenge for education. There are many references from supranational bodies and institutions than claim for inclusion in education as a global challenge for all countries, as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SGD 4: Quality Education), the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 24 recognizes the right of persons with disabilities to quality and inclusive education), and the Union of Equality Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030, where the European Commission calls on Member States “to support the development of inclusive schools that can become a reference in inclusive and innovative teaching and learning across the EU along the objectives of the European Education Area and the Digital Education Action Plan”.So, inclusion in education has become a real challenge and EU is front facing it with decision. It is in this context where our project becomes meaningful. Literature review has shown that teachers is a key group for advancing towards inclusive education: that’s the reason why they are protagonists of our project. Teacher training to foster their skills towards inclusion educational programs design can boost schools’ capacity to be more inclusive.<< Objectives >>In this context, the general aim of the project is to gather a team of actors of education from various European countries that can contribute to fostering inclusion in European schools mainly by improving teachers’ skills to integrate more inclusive didactics programs in their schools and broader communities. Under this premise, there are two approaches that literature review shows as effective for fostering inclusion at schools: Service-Learning (S-L) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). At the same time, these two approaches are meant to contribute to key competence learning of all pupils. In addition, Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have shown their capacity to boost educational proposals in order to be more inclusive, foster participation and gain accessibility for all learners. As specific objectives, we look for the following: •To explore synergies between a competence learning model through service-learning methodology (S-L) that integrates UDL. •To design, develop and share didactics programs based on S-L methodologies to enrich teachers and school's capacity to integrate inclusive practices. •To make a good practice guide for inclusion collecting the results of the schools and teachers' programs. •To collect high value ICT tools for inclusion to create a toolbox for teachers and schools to boost inclusion. •To create a user-friendly and easy-to-use app that facilitates to teachers the designing of inclusive didactical proposals (S-L projects, but not only...) including UDL principles, checkpoints and activities.•To disseminate the results of the project to expand European schools' engagement to inclusion in education.<< Implementation >>To achieve these objectives, we plan to develop the following activities: •Web page to share resources, experiences and activities of the project. The products of the project will be openly accessible through this website. •Initial digital survey to the participating teachers about their inclusive conception and practices, their knowledge about S-L and UDL, and the ICT tools they use. The results of this analysis will be taken into account for the design of the teachers’ training sessions. •Training sessions (LTT activity) preferably face-to-face (depending on COVID-19 evolution) for the teaching teams of each school that will participate in the project. Topics related to: EU key competences Framework, UDL, S-L and ICT Tools for inclusion, focusing on the synergies of these approaches for inclusion and for their practical implementation.•Design and creation of the App “INCLUDL in S-L” by the ICT Partner, taking into account the elements that the App should have in order to allow the integration of UDL into the process of programming through S-L. These elements will be defined and tested by all partners.•Design of the inclusive didactic programs by each school (after the Training Sessions) and supported by the partners of the Consortium specialized in Inclusive methodologies for Education and Service-Learning. •Implementation of the didactic programs in each schools and Evaluation of results.- LTT activity to exchange of experiences of each school after the implementation of the didactic programs and to share and squeeze out all the learning gained during the implementation of the S-L projects. •2 National Multiplier Events and 1 Final conference to present the results to the educational community and give it maximum dissemination.•5 Transnational Meetings of all the Project Partners and monthly online meetings to monitor the state of the planned activities and the accomplishment of the planned milestones of the project.<< Results >>We expect to obtain four main results as outputs of the project: 1. “Inclusive Inspiring Practices Guide” useful for any school engaged in fostering inclusion in its educational practice. 2. “INCLUDL in S-L"" digital app that facilitates the integration of UDL when planning an S-L project. 3. “ICT toolbox for inclusion”, as a compilation of ICT tools that teachers may use to foster their inclusive didactic programs. 4. OER: compilation of ready-to-use multimedia materials and resources organized by UDL guidelines for teachers and schools. Furthermore, we think there will be many others outcomes of our project: - Improvement of teachers’ knowledge and skills for making real inclusive educational proposals in their schools, through the integration of UDL.- Promoting the capacity of schools to connect with their context and become and active agent of the community through the development of S-L projects. - Contribute to closing the gap between schools and the wider community where they belong. - Enhance the role of ICT as useful tools for inclusion, able to wider accessibility and participation for all learners.- Contribute to a real key competences learning through the design of S-L proposal focusing on significative, motivating, attractive and real learning processes connected to the real needs of society, especially the ones with disabilities. - Enrich the knowledge and capacity of each of the participant institutions and schools in order to become an active agent in Europe ready to make real the dream of an inclusive education. - Facilitate an itinerary of action / exportable model to any European educational center that wishes to put into practice the praxis and know-how developed during the project."

"Following an international teachers' meeting in Bucharest in November 2017 entitled ""Anti-Discrimination"" and ""No-Hate-Speeches"", three teachers from ile de la Réunion, Poland and Belgium started an Erasmus+ project called ""Variety is the Spice of lLfe"". The fact was that each teacher was confronted with discrimination of different kinds and hate-speeches in their daily school life.Accordingly, they set three main objectives:1.students strengthen their understanding and expression of identity and self-esteem2.schools strengthen constructive dialogue and critical thinking about cultural differences3.inclusionHowever, since the terms in inverted commas were associated with the darker side of human beings and therefore had a high chance of being perceived rather negatively by the students, the first objective was to highlight the positive in the minds of each participant from these negative perceptions. This is the reason why the teachers included the term ""Variety"" or numerous different people with different traditions and cultures in the new heading. The""pice of Life"" was to match the optimism the teachers wanted to give to this project. Over the years, both have proved to be exactly right.In the spirit of positive thinking, the students listed up twenty values that testify to their profound humanity.It seems necessary to include the list of values here, as it is the cornerstone on which all participants could build each day to achieve their three main goals in the best possible way.Our Values:1. Trust2. Anti-Discrimination3. Anti-Hate-Speeches4. Tolerance5. Solidarity6. Respect7. Hospitality8. Peace9. Cohesion10. Cooperation11. Democracy12. Freedom13. Freedom of expression14. Self-esteem15. Equality between all people16. Equality before the law17. Empathy18. Moral courage19.Generosity20. CourageAt all levels, human values are primarily a qualitatively outstanding sense of achievement. The students developed civility, respect for themselves and others, and constructive critical faculties, so that they can henceforth play a significant role as role models as self-confident and responsible citizens (multiplier effect).It should also be noted here that the priority ""social and educational value of the European cultural heritage"" became a matter of course at some point due to the ever-growing curiosity of the students. In the first year of the project, we gave our students personal responsibility by allowing them to choose the subject matter themselves. The students showed a great interest in history in the broadest sense, from Charlemagne to the birth of the European Union. During the student-meetings, they showed an increasing interest in religions and/or philosophy up to very everyday aspects such as food, music, languages, traditions, etc. ....During the second year of the project, the three teachers selected the subject matter for all three countries in order to determine at the end of the project period which method would be better... Answer: NONE! In both cases, the high level of motivation remained and, in parallel, the need to contribute to society grew in many students. Thus, it was clear to the teachers that pedagogical contents are very important - whether it is the choice of students or teachers - but they only reach the students if they are included in the responsibility, are allowed to show their own initiative, also perceive respect and tolerance from their teachers and finally can see from their side that they can grow into VALUABLE human beings by using their human values in everyday life.The coordinator would like to take this opportunity to express her profound thanks to all those involved. Special thanks go to the staff of the National Agency in Eupen, the ""financial advisor"" of the German-speaking Community and last but by far not least to our Headmaster of the ZFP-Eupen, Mr SCHLEIHS, who has always supported and accompanied our Erasmus+ project with goodwill and assertiveness - especially in somewhat difficult times. In this summary, it was unfortunately far from possible to list all topics and educational resources, which is why the coordinator can be reached at any time at the following e-mail address: jenniges.marita@gmail.com.However, it is important to note that the planned exhibition will take place after the Covid-19-pandemic. All involved participants are pleased to invite every schools of the German-speaking Community to this event. You are most welcome!"

"""Come, my friend, get to know our culture"" is a two-year project that involves six countries: Slovenia, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.Europe is undergoing a change. The EU's task is to tackle unemployment, migration and marginalization. Some countries face a brain drain; others with school desertion. Our time requires compassion, responsibility, entrepreneurial spirit and the school must respond. We will overcome the current challenges only with European cooperationAt the initiative of the students and after analyzing the situation among adolescents, the partner schools decided to present a project that will strengthen the awareness of European citizens through international cooperation, promote tolerance and social inclusion, put the participants in real intercultural and linguistic situations and give them business knowledge and practicesA joint travel agency will motivate all participants and encourage them to know and value the wealth of our National and European heritage. Accepting the differences, we will discover shared intercultural democratic values. New friendships, mobilities, welcoming foreigners into homes will develop empathy in the whole school population, which is decreasing drastically among young people and it will promote non-discrimination in terms of gender, nationality, religion, appearance and other forms of exclusion. Through these exchanges we will spread the vision of the business world, in real situations, we will improve linguistic skills, we will acquire digital skills and we will have better job opportunitiesA joint international travel agency will be the main long-term result of the project, which will allow for a lasting impact on creativity and entrepreneurship. Students will learn the work of a tourist guide from real experience, from job searching, travel and being a guide, editting a Guide for Young Travelers, learn about the laws of youth work, and the creation and promotion of the company. With informal learning, they will reinforce their attachment to European cultural heritage: they will explore and visit partner countries, make a video, and attend classes with classmates. All this will allow students to recognize the social, cultural and educational value of their European cultural heritage and its contribution to job creation, economic growth and social cohesionBy working together at home and by travelling, adolescents of different ages, interests, nationalities, religions, beliefs and health with the support of teachers will work on tolerance and respect for diversity. They will live with host families, learn about their habits and discover common values. Girls and boys will use digital technologies to create products (films, digital books, padlet, prezi) and communicate through social networks, and educators will educate them about the responsible use of the Internet, privacy, bullying, violence, and false informationPartner schools face early school desertion caused by psychological, educational and student learning difficulties. Teachers will find an effective way to deal with these problems using the Montessori pedagogy, a friendly educational approach that promotes independent work and the acquisition of work habits, while students mantain the joy of discovery, research and learningThe project also plans to have a seminar on innovative practices, ICT workshops, and eTwinning, job shadowing, visits to emblematic European places, which will make the teaching profession more attractive and diverse, since it will allow them to cooperate, to have a cultural and linguistic experience, to learn new methods and promote professional developmentThe project will involve the entire community of six countries (students, teachers, school administration, staff, families, local authorities, associations), which is a very large number of participants, who will address the project issues during the classes, create products, welcome guests, acquire new knowledge and skills. The project foresees five days of mobility by 120 students between 12 and 16 years old and 66 teachers from six countriesThe project will have long-term benefits since the established travel agency will be permanent. The students will transfer the knowledge and skills they have acquired to the next generations and will train their colleagues in tourism, corporate management and ICT useAn online travel agency will include the new partner schools which will participate in the next eTwinning, Erasmus or school exchanges and will negotiate virtually through eTwinningThe results of the project will be published in local and youth media, on websites, TwinSpace, School Educat. Gateway and in Erasmus+ Projects Results.This will benefit all those who know our project. Last but not least, the families of the students, the teachers, the school staff will benefit from the project when planning their vacations, since the project website will become a useful database for all."