When it is time for children to start attending school for the first time, they are excited and eager to do so. The meeting with the place where they will learn to read and write is longed for and everyone, without exception, wants to begin this new journey of their life. However, after a short time, depending on the child, this feeling disappears and children start to want spending as little time as possible in school and wishing school vacations. The glances at the clock happen several times and, with them, the classes will finish, so they can leave school, as soon as they can. What are we doing wrong? Why does a pleasure become a must? With this project it is intended that children enjoy being in school, creating spaces and activities that children like to attend, turning the school into a desired place to be, even if they do not have classes. At the same time, by acquiring this taste for the school, it is intended that they simultaneously develop a taste for learning, and that they can grow in harmony with the taste to learn and to play with their friends. It is well known that the fact that students do not like to attend school leads to the appearance of poor school results and early school leaving. It is of all interest to create a healthy environment and appreciated by the students, so that their well-being enhances their desire to learn. On the basis of this principle, each country involved, Portugal, Germany, England, Turkey and Sweden applied a questionnaire to 150 students from their school, where they wanted to know why they did not like the school and what they would like it to stimulate in their learning and willingness to learn. From the results of this questionnaire came some surprising results, such as that of about 40% of the students mentioning that they would like to stay longer in school, despite the number of daily hours that are already there. When asked what they would like to do the vast majority mentioned sports activities, about 77% of students said they would like to stay in school to practice various sports activities, suggesting the creation of several spaces that allowed it. About 46% suggested leisure activities. The most surprising was the percentage of students (62%) who mentioned the desire to develop activities in the disciplines, but in clubs: Environment, Science, Theater, Music, Dance, Drawing, History, Geography, ICT, among many others. It was made clear that what the students do not like about the school is the classes, and especially the moments of evaluation, however, 42% of the students showed interest in them but suggesting new ways of learning by the teachers. Most of these approaches suggest the use of new technologies - the classroom of the future. The main goal of the project is for students to value the school, to feel good about it, and to develop a willingness to learn with quality in an environment where they feel good and willing to attend regardless of having classes. It is intended that all feel welcome, living healthily and never considering dropping out of school, but continuing, later, with the frequency of university courses. Like this: Provide a safe and student-friendly school environment; Increase interaction between students from different classes; Increase interaction between students with different cultures; Promote the integration of students with different cultures / habits; Increase the taste for learning; Increase the success of high school students by reducing retention; Motivate students with learning difficulties to meet their needs; Increase student self-esteem and reduce dropout. Improve English skills; Promote equality and social cohesion by discovering and exchanging good practices in partner schools. By increasing the interaction among students, creating the opportunity to interact with each other in activities of their interest, we will be creating opportunities for global relationships, reducing the percentage of students who for one reason or another feel excluded. Likewise, this healthy interaction will develop in students a taste for school attendance, substantially reducing the possibility of considering school drop-out, thus reducing the number of students who drop out of school prematurely. Together this healthy coexistence and taste for the school will also increase the will to learn. Students will become more interested in learning which will increase their school results. This will create a greater academic knowledge that will allow them to see in school a way to ensure a better future. Our greatest wish is that all schools in the world can apply and take advantage of this project. The detailed description of the evolution of the project, of the activities carried out, will forever be immortalized in social networks. Any school in the world can view and implement them. The materials produced, film and booklet, will be available electronically or on material medium, and can be consulted at any time.
The partner countries England and Sweden withdrew their participation at the beginning of the project work without giving any reason, so that finally Portugal, Turkey and Germany carried out the project. The first mobility took place in Germany. Pupils and two teachers from Portugal and pupils from Turkey travelled to Meinersen. The pupils were accommodated in host families, the teachers in a hotel. The preparations for the first mobility took place in the respective partner schools. The theme of the first exchange with groups of pupils was "traditional games". For this purpose, the German school organised friendship tournaments for individual grades, in which the host students were involved. The 5th classes played dodgeball, the 6th classes football, the 7th classes handball, the 8th classes basketball and the 9th and 10th classes volleyball. On another day, each country presented common (children's) games of their country, which were then played by everyone together. Playing together created a very harmonious sense of community. In the course of the project, the pupils communicated more and more freely and informally with each other in English, and the inhibitions that initially existed due to the use of the foreign language diminished more and more. The social programme of the exchange included visits to the Autostadt in Wolfsburg, which is very important for this region, and a visit to the cities of Braunschweig and Celle. Many students from the German school were involved in the tournaments. The students who hosted guest students benefited particularly. Some friendships developed that were maintained beyond the project via chat groups, email or other online platforms. The second mobility was an exchange of teaching staff and took place in Tomar, Portugal. Five colleagues were involved in this mobility. The content focused on robotics, exploring the surroundings of Tomar, lectures on digital teaching and testing different learning apps. The third mobility, entitled "Dance", was prepared in the individual countries. The German group practised a hip-hop dance in cooperation with a local dance school. The German group did not take part in the exchange because of the uncertain political situation in Turkey at the time, so only Portugal and Turkey were involved in the mobility. The fourth exchange was supposed to take place in Portugal, but was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. This resulted in a delay of one year in the implementation of the project and the other exchanges were organised virtually. The long delay of the project meant that a large number of the students involved had already left school at the time of the last projects or were in the final exam phase and would no longer be available for all activities. Therefore, we had to recruit new students who first had to be informed about the previous activities. On the other hand, this also enabled us to reach a larger number of participants over the whole project period. The virtual form of exchange was an additional challenge for all participants, as this form of communication was new to everyone. Despite initial technical difficulties, the two virtual three-day events were successful and enriching for the participants. Each country presented a virtual tour of their school and its surroundings. Afterwards, a quiz was solved by all. The German students, in cooperation with a local artist, had made installations out of modelling clay that represented their wishes for a pleasant school environment. The wishes were not only about space and furnishings, but also about how to interact with each other. The Portuguese school instructed the students in traditional Portuguese tile painting in a video workshop that was created in a pottery. The final event focused on the theme of music. Each school presented musical pieces played by the individual school bands. This was followed by a writing workshop in which the participating pupils wrote texts on the topic of "What is a good school for you". They created flow texts, mind maps, poem forms and word pictures, which were then presented and shown in the video conference. Finally, the whole project was reflected on by everyone.