Huelin is a secondary school in the city of Malaga. The staff is composed of 65 teachers, attending to a population of more than 950 students from over 28 nationalities, with a foreign student rate of 16,42 %. There is a group of teachers in our school very committed to international partnership. We finished a two-year Comenius partnership last year with great success. Some of us took over the coordination of a new partnership from our coordinating English school to apply for an Erasmus+ strategic partnership. The three main topics of this project emerged after we analysed the current socio-economic situation and assessed the needs at our school: 1) Entrepreneurial spirit and business culture to foster self-employment. 2) Energy awareness on topics such as energy efficiency, use of renewable energy, CO2 emissions and waste management. 3) Improvement of the teaching learning process on a variety of aspects such as student diversity, inclusion of SEN students, the school library, absenteeism, Open Educational Resources ( OER), innovative and motivating teaching methods, as Project or Problem-based learning. Our main project objectives are: a) To increase knowledge and raise ecological awareness in sustainable and renewable energy, waste and environmental management, energy efficiency, CO2 emission reductions. To increase the number of actions and facilities we can implement in order to save in costs both at school and at home and not to damage the planet. b) To improve the teaching-learning process through innovative and motivating teaching methods and good practices, such as project or problem-based approaches and open educational resources, especially in Mathematics, Science and Languages. To develop initiatives on the teacher and student level, especially where the most deprived students are concerned. c) To foster the entrepreneurial mindset, as well as the skills and employability of our students, giving them help in order to start, run or grow a business or enterprise. There are 6 secondary schools, most of them with a CLIL approach: “ Penair School” in England is a specialist school for Science, “Liceo Classico Vittorio Emanuele II” in Italy is specialized in History of Art and Languages, “Tampereen Lyseon Lukio” in Finland and “Cato Bontjes van Beek Gymnasium” in Germany focus on Natural and Social Sciences and Languages, “Gimnazjum nr 1 im. Jana Pawla II” in Poland has a Sport and Language profile, and finally our school mainly focuses on the areas of Mathematics, Languages and ICT. Every school has their strengths and weaknesses, but we believe that every school community will gain in the following aspects after the completion of this project: STUDENTS: collaborative working, self-learning and e-learning (OER); motivation for learning, especially the most disadvantaged students; business spirit and the entrepreneurial capability to start a business or an enterprise; ecological and energy efficiency awareness; European identity; English language; emotional, cultural, autonomy and personal competences (e.g. by living together in the mobilities),… STAFF: professional and pedagogical development in relation to e-learning ( OER), project and problem-based teaching approaches, Work-related Learning, Home Economics, CLIL methodology, entrepreneurial culture, international collaboration beyond the life of the project, ecological learning activities,… SCHOOL: international dimension, effective teaching methods, eco-school team, commission for partnerships, school project and programs permeated with an entrepreneurial and ecological spirit ( e.g. by the entrepreneurship corner or school garden), energy and water saving( e.g. by green facilities),… FAMILY: acquire an enhanced sense of European cohesion by hosting foreign students, active participation in the school activities (e.g. by helping with the energy and waste management activities),… Through our dissemination plan we expect our experience to reach other schools and institutions, encouraging them to collaborate in the future. Our dissemination plan goes from a local or regional level in newspapers, television channels, associations, town halls, local educational authority platforms,… to a national and European level in platforms such as the Spanish Ministry of Education and the European Commission. In addition, every country will design their own dissemination plan. We will have activities before (coordination and preparation), during (collaborative working, brainstorming, brainwriting, making materials, sharing and exchanging information, job shadowing, visits, evaluation) and after the mobilities (presentations, monitoring, putting into practice some ideas, dissemination). Finally, we have to say that one of the motives that encouraged us to start this project was its sustainability, in terms of maintaining the results of the project and continual improvement (e.g. school entrepreneurship contest, green facilities, lists of OER).
The project was created by IES Huelin in Malaga.We committed ourselves to using eTwinning in our project as it is a great collaborative tool.The project started when some teachers identified some needs which should be met. The participant schools know each other as we carried out a Comenius project from 2012 to 2014.The project has consisted of 6 mobilities from 2015 to 2017.The same schools,except one,also took part in a previous Comenius project The main objectives have been met: 1)Improving teaching-learning process: open educational resources(OER), innovative methods as project and problem-based learning activities, school library dynamization, improving outcomes especially for students with learning difficulties and discapabilities, combating the school absenteeism, teacher and student assessments,… 2)Raising awareness on renewable energy: energy efficiency, climate change, reducing CO2, waste management, energy bills study, saving in costs both at home and school,… 3)Fostering the entrepreneurial spirit: creating a mini business, setting up a time bank at school,… Every school has their strengths and weaknesses, but we believe that every school community has gained in many aspects after this project. Participating schools: Penair School in Truro England: is a secondary school specializing in Science. Its coordinator has been very much involved in European and International partnership projects. The school has been awarded the Eco Schools Green Flag. It has a work related learning faculty Liceo Vittorio Emanuele II in Palermo Italy:Its coordinator has been involved in some international partnerships. The school participates in entrepreneurship activities Tampereen Lyseon Lukio in Tampere Finland:Its coordinator is a biology and English teacher very involved in European and International partnership projects, and is the CAS( creativity, activity, service ) coordinator in the International Baccalaureate programme.The school has environment and science club. Other teachers involved are in charge of recycling and sustainable development programmes, and in preventing dropping out and developping students’ enterprise skills Cato Bonjes van Beek High School in Achim Germany:Some teachers are very involved in international,European,environmental, energy efficiency and waste recycling projects. They have a science club which is very concerned about the environmental sustainability. The school has a mini company run by students selling products and clothes related to the school.Teachers observe their colleagues’s classes Ilaweckie Górowo Juan Pablo II in Poland:It takes part in many projects connected with ecology and sports.As a SOS Volleyball Academy partner school cooperates with other educational institutions on motivating students to personal development via sport IES Huelin in Malaga Spain: The school achieved top results in the Erasmus+ KA1 2014 call.The school takes part in different projects related to the Erasmus+ project, such as “KiotoEduca” and “Educar a Emprender” to promote entrepreneurship spirit Two teachers and 4 students from each school have traveled in each mobility.Each school selected 20 students to participate directly in the project, though other students have participated as well These are the main activities and results we have been doing throughout the project: a)Researching recycling and waste management in our schools and homes in order to improve them b)Studying the electricity bills and calculate our carbon footprint in order to implement energy efficiency measures and reduce CO2 emissions in our schools and homes c)Understanding the importance of renewable energy by visiting a hydroelectric power plant and a wind farm d)A business project based on sustainable tourism after visiting the Eden Project and St. Ives e)A list of OER of different subjects with their main characteristics f)A teaching guide for the School Time Bank g)Sharing innovative teaching methods and good practices h)Setting up a school mini Company and visiting entrepreneurship centres. Each school has been developing a business through the different steps and plans This project has sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship, recycling and digital and self learning in the schools.We are gradually changing recycling behavior.IES Huelin mini company made a tremendous impact on students’ healthcare and entrepreneurial skills The open access to materials,documents and means created along the project has guaranteed a greater impact, mainly through open licenses as Creative Commons and repositories and networks of OER. We can guess our project results and activities have reached a lot of people, especially students and teachers, just considering our wide range of dissemination means These are some sustainable activities or long-term benefits: set up a vertical garden, paid teaching web pages by the school faculties,school green team,restart the school mini company or a new one, install more Led tubes and recycling bins