Free labour market in the EU enables EU citizens to work and reside in a country they choose. Therefore along with communication in a foreign language, other skills have to be developped to help people adapt to constant changes. Do European schools equip their students with competences they will need in their personal and professional life though? Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 says that key competences should be acquired by young people at the end of their compulsory education and training. Schools are the institutions that should let their students acquire key competences important for lifelong learning. Young teenagers are at the age when they think more about their future, clearly observing and judging the world around them trying to find their own way in it. However, they are not skilled enough to cope with a lot of unexpected situations. We therefore decided to let our students learn from other European teenagers through exploring their school systems. The target group of the project are students aged 13 - 15 as they are reaching the time of finishing their compulsory education (at the age of 16 in all participating countries) and should have had their key competences developped. The aim of the project is to let the students look for good practices in host schools, integrate them into theirs in order to transform their schools into institutions meeting the needs of young people of 21st century. The students will not only implement innovations into their schools, but they will also bring all innovations together to design an ideal school. Moreover, they will be developping their key competences while participating in project activites to get a basis for further learning. Sixty young teenagers of the target group (representing Mini-European Youth Parliament), represented equally by twelve students from each country (France, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Spain) will be involved in the project directly. They will look for well-established principles in host schools to be integrated into their own school system. The students will be in touch through eTwinning chat (once a month) to get insight into each other's school life. They will also get a chance to observe other schools systems through shadowing to see how the effective principles work in practice there. The follow-up analysis will enable students to choose the aspects of each host school that could increase the quality of theirs after the innovations are implemented. By participating in the project the students will increase their interest in the matters of their schools, as well as become more familiar with different educational systems and school environments. They will develop the key competences well as self-confidence, critical thinking, team spirit and presentation skills. The reputation of the schools will contribute to parents' satisfaction as the schools will show goodwill in making changes to satisfy their children' needs. The students will not only implement good practices in their school systems (resulting in innovated school documents and adjustments made in school facilitities), but they will design an ideal school bringing together all effective principles observed. The concept of the school will be presented in a multimedia form, as well as in paperback as a source of inspiration for other teachers, school directors and local/regional or national authorities in school education.
Free labour market in the EU enables EU citizens to work and reside in the country they choose. Therefore along with communication in foreign languages, other key competences need to be developed to help people adapt to constant changes of the modern world. Are students prepared to succeed in their future careers, personal fulfilments, development and active EU citizenship? Do European schools meet the needs of generation Z? How are the students satisfied with the way they learn? Would they make any changes in their school systems if they could? How do they imagine an ideal school? To find the answers, we let the students explore various European school systems and exchange good practices that were afterwards integrated into their institutions and thus modernized them. Moreover, the students designed an ideal school by putting together effective principles of each school system. By taking part in the project activities, they developed their key competences and soft skills. Five European schools (Institution Sainte Marie, Ribeauvillé, France, IC Camera, Sala Consilina, Italy, Zespol Ksztalcenia Podstawowego i Gimnazjalnego nr 7,Gdansk, Poland, Základná škola Staničná 13, Košice, Slovakia, Inmaculado Corazón de María,Logroño, Spain) cooperated in a two-year project to achieve its objectives. The Concept of an ideal school, as well as other project outputs and outcomes are available on the project website erasmusidealschool.webnode.sk. The project results were disseminated at the local and regional level to share the good practices among other educational institutions and to the local authorities in the field of school education. Based on positive project experience new ideas for future eTwinning projects and mutual short-term exchanges of students have been proposed. Voľný pracovný trh umožňuje občanom Európskej Únie usadiť sa v akejkoľvek krajine. Komunikovať v cudzom jazyku je pre ľudí, ktorí urobia také rozhodnutie, nevyhnutné. Pre uplatnenie sa na trhu práce je potrebné mať rozvinuté aj iné zručnosti, ktoré im môžu uľahčiť adaptovať sa na neustále zmeny v modernom svete. Sú žiaci pripravení uspieť vo svojom profesionálnom i súkromnom živote v Európskom priestore? Prispôsobujú sa európske vzdelávacie inštitúcie potrebám mladých ľudí 21.storočia? Sú študenti spokojní so spôsobom vyučovania? Urobili by vo svojich školských systémoch nejaké zmeny, ak by mali príležitosť? Ako si predstavujú ideálnu školu? Vzájomnou spoluprácou, spoznávaním vzdelávacích systémov partnerských škôl, výmenou osvedčených skúseností sa žiaci inšpirovali mnohými inováciami, ktoré následne zavádzali vo svojich školách a takto ich modernizovali. Okrem toho navrhli model ideálnej školy, v ktorom uplatnili efektívne prvky vzdelávacích systémov navštívených škôl. Implementáciou projektu a účasťou na projektových aktivitách si rozvinuli svoje kľúčové kompetencie a mäkké zručnosti. Vzájomnou spoluprácou piatich európskych škôl (Institution Sainte Marie, Ribeauvillé, Francúzsko, IC Camera, Sala Consilina, Taliansko, Zespol Ksztalcenia Podstawowego i Gimnazjalnego nr 7,Gdansk, Poľsko, Základná škola Staničná 13, Košice, Slovensko, Inmaculado Corazón de María,Logroño, Španielsko) sa počas dvojročného projektového obdobia podarilo dosiahnuť všetky ciele projektu. Koncepcia ideálnej školy a všetky výstupy a výsledky projektu sú zverejnené na webovej stránke projektu erasmusidealschool.webnode.sk. Skúsenosti z realizácie projektu boli šírené na miestnej i regionálnej úrovni s cieľom inšpirovať získanými skúsenosťami iné vzdelávacie inštitúcie a odborníkov v oblasti školského vzdelávania.Na základe úspešnej spolupráce boli vytvorené návrhy budúcich eTwinning projektov a vzájomných krátkodobých výmen žiakov.