The LIFE Project LIFE stands for Linking Interests For Europe. The Need When our students graduate at our schools, they are not ready for professional life and often go to higher education or university. Thus, we feel that there is a growing gap between what we teach our students and what companies expect from them. Moreover, most of our students do not take or are not offered the subject of Economics and most of them have no idea of how a company works. Finally, as a school, we feel the need to give our students more real life challenges as to practise their skills and to make them more aware of all the opportunities in the European community. We believe that by doing so the students' chances of finding a job later on will be increased. Unfortunately, our schools too often lack contacts and partners in the world of local companies. Linking Interests For Europe By linking the interests of schools, students and local companies we believe that we can create a win-win situation for all partners involved and thus build a stronger Europe together. We feel most local companies may not be eager to offer our students work experience as they are not yet fit for the labour market. They may see it as a waste of time. At the same time, they are struggling to open up new markets for their products. The students of the partner schools could be their “ambassadors” in three other European countries. In return our students will be able to practise their communicative skills in real life, get insights into the structure of a company and the challenges of an employee, become familiar with the world of marketing and business and become aware of what it means to live in the European community. The Basic Idea Students from Germany, Belgium, Italy and Portugal will contact and/or visit local companies with the offer to have their products promoted by students in three other European countries at three different European LIFE Trade Fairs. Furthermore, the students will produce three promotional videos of each company in three other European languages. The companies can use these videos themselves, but these videos will also be shown internationally at the European LIFE Trade Fairs and published on the LIFE website. In order to prepare the trade fairs transnational conferences will be organised by each participating school. During such a transnational conference students who do not take Economics as a subject at school will be trained in business communication, marketing and publicity. They will visit local companies, which they will have to promote. The Planning of the LIFE project Four schools from four different European countries are participating. Each school will organise one transnational conference in cooperation with local companies, whose products will be presented at European LIFE Trade Fairs. Other local companies, political representatives, parents and the press will be invited to the opening of the fairs. The project will last for two years. Quality Management At the end of each transnational conference and European LIFE Trade Fair all participants (students, teachers, companies and parents) will assess their participation and the organisation of each event. We will use the online Kwik Surveys tools. Each school will have a LIFE project coordinator whose task will be to communicate the results of these surveys with their teams as to improve the quality of our LIFE project. The German school will coordinate the project. Mission Statement We believe that by linking the interests of schools, students and local companies we can strengthen our students and our region. Most of all, we believe that by linking the interests of the four different schools and their different regions we can benefit from each other and build a stronger Europe. Education, young people and the growth of local companies will be the motor for economic expansion and prosperity in Europe.
Context/Background of the project When our students graduate, they might be ready to go to higher education and university, but they are very often not ready for professional life. Thus, we felt that there was a growing gap between what we teach our students and what companies expect from them. Moreover, most of our students do not take or are not offered the subject of Economics and most of them have no idea of how a company works. Therefore, as schools, we felt the need to give our students more real life challenges as to enhance their skills and to make them more aware of all the opportunities in the European community. We believed that by doing so, the students' chances of finding a job later on would be increased. Objectives The central aim was to enable the students to gain experience in getting in touch with the world of work; at first in preparatory courses at school and later in local companies with European contacts. By using a structured concept, we wanted to link the interests of our students as future employees with local companies. By using innovative and learner centered pedagogical approaches we wanted to foster the link between school education and business life as a method to increase the students' awareness and ability to become active European citizens. We wanted to make students more aware of their talents and interests when choosing a job or an area of studies as well as more aware of the real demands and needs in the European market. Number and profile of participating organizations Being four experienced schools as far as exchanges are concerned, we wanted to broaden our horizons in order to create new concepts and chances for our students. The German school has developed a job experience programme as a part of the curriculum in the subject of German, which is limited to companies and institutions of its town. The Portuguese school, offering professional secondary education as one branch, could both profit from innovative teaching methods developed during this course, as well as contribute with on-field acquired experience. The Belgian school offered a lot of know-how concerning ICT skills and marketing concepts, because one of the participating teachers has studied economics and web design. The Italian partner school contributed with basic ideas of sponsorship and to intensify techniques of professional communication and presentation skills. Description and undertaken main activities The four schools from the four different European countries participating each organized one transnational conference in cooperation with local companies. These four conferences (one in each country) offered different forms of work experience for students, different coaching courses given by experts to train students in fields relevant for the project (i.e., marketing techniques, psychology of marketing, sponsorship, photography, presentation techniques, and so on), visits and presentations of local companies abroad, as well as evaluation meetings (for teachers only). The physical outcome of these conferences, i.e., promotional material for the companies involved in the form of leaflets, powerpoint presentations and promotional videos was presented at European LIFE Trade Fairs, at the end of the two-year project term. Other local companies, political representatives, parents and the press were invited to the the fairs. IT-skills, intercultural dialogue by peer-learning, as well as linking local businesses within the European Union were key elements of the project, widening the intervenients´ future perspectives and opening new markets for local companies. Skills learnt at school were used in real-life economic contexts, such as, for example, strategic business meetings, job applications, job interviews, briefings by personal managers, product videos and other promotional material and their presentation to an audience. Students also had the challenge of finding sponsors for the t-shirts with the LIFE logo and for the fairs. Results and impact attained Students learnt about and experienced companies abroad and understood that living in Europe means to be part of a huge community offering lots of different possibilities to start a career, not only in one's home country. Students got real life insight into local companies in their hometown as well as abroad, while companies were promoted by students. Having broadened their horizons, both intervenients profited from the process. This project prepared the students of general secondary education in a vocational way and on a European level, which is new at our schools. Long term benefits We believe that this project increased the chances of employment for our students and strengthened the cooperation between the local companies and schools involved. The survey conducted with the students at the end oft he project also showed that they have profited from the project and become more interested in studying and working abroad in their future.