The partnership is the result of many contacts by e-mail and some visits from the German coordinator to Slovenia and Belgium. All schools have experience in international projects (the Belgian and Slovenian school worked together in a previous Comenius project) During these visits and contacts we felt a positive vibe and a lot of ideas came up spontaneously to make this project a useful and interesting tool for all participants. Our partnership is among similar schools; we are quite similar in sorts of pupils and staff, we are located in small towns and/or rural areas, we are surrounded by working class population and many pupils are immigrants or have parents with immigration background. Approximately 600 people (200 per country, 80 per year at every school, 20 people from the local community) will have the chance to take part in all activities that happen inside (job oriented activities) and outside the school (friendship building activities). Host families, people from the local economy, people from the high schools and university in the individual areas will receive invitations to participate and evaluate the students' approaches and help the students succeeding As the title for the project we agreed on "Skills4life". With this project, we want to give the students some handles on which they can rely on when they leave school and enter the jobmarket. In order to develop this ambitious project, we will focus on the following topics: - "first aid" for a good job application (how to select proper job offers, do's and don'ts during an appilcation conversation,....) - how to find the right studies in a high school - is working/studying abroad an opportunity? - working and practizing IT-skills: online surveys, presentation tools, maintaining a website, - company visits, guestspeakers from high schools or from the government in the field of employment. - learning advantages and disadvatages of working in a small or a big company - learning to see what am I good at / where I see myself working inside a company - how to see the enviroment I live in as a business opportunity The students are supposed to walk out of this project as strong, self-confident and pleased people who hopefully know more about what they want to work in the future and what they need to get to this aim. The involved schools will be much more organized in their job orientation activities and have a new structure of these activities. Future teachers in this field will have less work, as they will be able to get back to the material that this project has used, so there will be much less preparation necessary for the job orientation module in each school. Most tasks will be done in groups with mixed nationalities in order to exercise language and social skills. Each topic will be explored in each school and then shared and discussed in our subsequent meetings. Activities will be very varied, interactive and finalized on the website. Evaluation and follow-up is also important. For example during the last meeting we will develop a long-term evaluation tool which will be automatically activated five years after the last meeting. Each student will receive an e-mail with a survey in an attachment. That survey will allow teachers to evaluate the project in all his aspects and the results will be published on the website as well.
The project consisted of four mobilities and the topic was the professional future of our students. Mobility 1 took place in Germany. There, the contents were - getting to know the participants - a speech by a consultant of the local job centre (topics: importance of competencies related to work/study plans) - a presentation of various questionnaires and collections of competencies - a presentation of the project idea of a "Book of Skills" that could help people to choose a career/study in the future - what do application letters and CVs in Germany look like, and how in other European countries - each participating school presented its school, its country and its previous approach to finding a way into the professional future of their students - participation in the National Open Day at universities - interviews with university students about the necessary skills for certain courses - guided tour of the production site of WMF (Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik), from the point of view of vocational orientation towards a technical degree Mobility 2 took place in Belgium. There, the contents were - presentation in which the participants were told how the project was going for students new to the project - participants were welcomed in the town hall Sint Niklaas by the local mayor in the presence of the local press - factory management at Volvo Trucks in Ghent from the point of view of possible professional orientation in a technical direction - event of the Human Resources department of Volvo Trucks about the topic of according to which criteria applicants are selected - review of the results of the visit to Volvo Trucks - presentation of the Europass - start of creating a Europass for interested students - visit to the European Commission in Brussels - video-recorded interviews and evaluation by Randstad Belgium and personal tips on optimization - evaluation of the project week Mobility 3 took place in Slovenia. There, the contents were - working with honey and bee products in general - a visit to the Museum of Apiculture to study historical trade in bee products - a visit to the premises of Logar Trade, a family-owned company specializing in equipment for the production of bee products - an interview with the managing director of Logar Trade about which applicant would be considered for recruitment and how a family business is run - a visit to Medex's sales office in Ljubljana, a larger company in the field of bee products - a city tour in Ljubjana by students for students - a visit to the farm of an ex-student of BC Naklo, who is very successful through honey production - the production of own bee products at the school - a lesson in Business administration on selling and making profit in companies - the evaluation of the week and handing over of the participation certificates Mobility 4 took place in Slovenia. The contents of this week were - viewing all data - that the idea of the online site was finally developed - to talk about the success of the project, to exchange experiences and opinions - visiting the start-up incubator in Ljubljana and seeing how this institution helps startup companies to realize their idea - teamwork simulations (Marshmallow Challenge) - meeting with self-employed entrepreneurs, e.g. with the managing director of "Savy" (mobile ECG) and an employee of Balkan Campers (classic car motorhomes) - research on possible future jobs and skills - the start of creating a website - the decision against the originally planned Book of Skills - the use of an international educational conference as a platform for dissemination - a final evening and evaluation by teachers and participants.