"Creating and developing your future" is an Erasmus+ project that will enable the four European partner schools to develop a groundbreaking programme of skills-based entrepreneurship, rather than just focusing on academic subjects. Today's students require more than theoretical knowledge--as important as this is: they also need to learn from on-the-job experts and test themselves, thereby building their skill set and confidence levels. School is all about preparing young people for the future and yet orientation is done most often by "ordinary" teachers and many have received no job orientation training and simply “muddle though”. Few have any significant experience of work outside of teaching. Most have never been through a job selection process like that faced by most young people today and they rarely face the pressures of job insecurity. Our pioneering project is an attempt to bridge the “orientation gap”. Throughout the partner schools, careers guidance will be rethought and students and parents brought into the design process. Through an augmented reality orientation guide that will be part of a business plan for other local schools, students will buy into more than just skills: they will begin to own their future. This project plans to develop new teaching methodologies based on mentoring, such as project-based learning, problem-solving, SCOs, flipped classrooms, gamification, design thinking, as well as agile business creation with Lean Start-up (LSU) applied to entrepreneurship and Canvas Model (CM) business plans that will be put into practice with real and simulated start-ups. Our students require not only quality professional knowledge, new skills and work experience, but also personal development plans to face the challenges and difficulties of life with the maturity, creativity and resilience necessary to solve them and overcome them effectively. In short, they need to build up their emotional intelligence to brave the storms of the future. But this project is not just about students. It will bring teachers out of their comfort zone into the "real" world thanks to partnerships with external stakeholders, people like their alumni, local , regional or multinational companies, local chambers of commerce and elected representatives. Not only will they have on-the-job training, but teachers will broaden their horizons as to the opportunities and threats outside education. What's more, the senior leadership in schools will break the mould of the traditional pyramidal power paradigm and allow their staff to take on responsibility and own the school development plan that they are pushing. And thanks to an online orientation tool and a resource platform, vistas of opportunity for other teachers in Europe open up for them to add to this ongoing project. For the multitude of external stakeholders, there is a chance to buy into and shape the future job market, as well as accompany the local school which is looking for guidance. Europe--its companies, education systems, teachers and youth--has everything to gain.
The "Creating and developing your future" project has allowed the 4 partner schools to implement a groundbreaking programme of skills-based entrepreneurship, rather than just focusing on academic subjects. The basis of the project has been not only to focus on the theoretical contents of typical entrepreneurial activities but also to provide our students with an innovative practical approach, by learning from experts in professional careers and the labor market, and allowing them to test the skills acquired in a real environment throughout the project, thereby building their skill set and confidence levels. School is all about preparing young people for the future and yet orientation is done most often by "ordinary" teachers and many have received no job orientation training and simply “muddle though”. Few have any significant experience of work outside of teaching. Most have never been through a job selection process like that faced by most young people today and they rarely face the pressures of job insecurity. Our pioneering project has been an attempt to bridge the “orientation gap”. Throughout the project, partner schools have rethought that policy of academic and professional guidance, including students and parents in the redesign of that orientation plan. An online orientation tool has been produced and it is available to the local community allowing students to acquire more than skills: to be responsible for their own future. In the project we have implemented new teaching methodologies, based on mentoring, such as project-based learning, problem solving, generation of SCOs, inverted classes, gamification, design thinking, and business creation through agile methodologies and Lean Startup. All this applied to entrepreneurship, using Canvas models and business plans that have been implemented with simulations. Our students have to acquire, in addition to professional knowledge, new skills and work experience, and also have personal development plans to face the difficulties and challenges of adult life with maturity, creativity and the resilience necessary to solve them effectively. We firmly believe that this project has helped them to do so, both to direct participants and to those who have indirectly been involved. In addition, the products generated will help the rest of the educational community to benefit from the conclusions of the project. Besides, this project has helped teachers to abandon their comfort zone focusing them on the real world outside school, thanks to partnerships with all types of stakeholders, such as alumni, local, regional and international companies, chambers of commerce and elected representatives. Not only have they had on-the-job training, but teachers have broadened their horizons as to the opportunities and threats outside education. What's more, the senior leadership in schools have broken the mould of the traditional pyramidal power paradigm and allowed their staff to take on responsibility and own the school development plan that they are pushing. And thanks to an online orientation tool and a resource platform, many opportunities for other teachers in Europe open up for them to add to this ongoing project.