The participating schools have recognised that the skills our learners will need as they grow and enter the world of work are as yet uncertain. The job market is evolving daily and new terms and technological innovations are observed weekly. It is the role of schools, as learning communities, to offer the best chances possible to our learners. We should facilitate learning which is innovative, skills-based driven, and relevant. Learners should leave school knowing that they have the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their goals, and these goals should be aspirational. Furthermore, in our local communities we identified a lack of skills needed to allow social mobility and self improvement. We intend to develop our schools as places of community learning, offering members of the community support to gain new skills which will promote life long learning and employability. Pupils from all partner schools will learn, practice and share a variety of digital competence skills with members of their family and the local community. These digital competence skills will include the areas of presenting, data handling, video and audio recording and editing, coding, internet safety, data storage and many more. Staff and pupils will work together using various programmes, online resources, apps and technologies to produce presentations, teaching resources and activities which pupils will use to teach a variety of digital competence skills to family members and the local community who will be invited to take part in a series of digital competence workshops. Pupils will carry out research prior to the workshops to investigate what needs are present in the local community. They will attend pupil exchange visits during the first year of the project to benefit from a variety of European approaches to teaching and learning and activities designed to increase their digital competencies. They will also grow in their appreciation of other cultures and attitudes to learning across Europe. As a result of their improved skills, they will be well equipped to plan and prepare community learning workshops in order to meet identified needs and will consequently provide incredibly valuable digital competence skills to many people across the various countries involved. The aim of the project is for pupils to learn a variety of skills from working alongside their peers, their new partners in other countries, and the members of the community they teach. They will develop their own digital competence skills as well as the digital competence skills of members of the community. Furthermore, they will develop communication, empathy and understanding, whilst helping to increase the employability of members of the community. Teachers and teaching assistants will also greatly benefit as their digital competence skills will improve throughout the course of the project. As well, their professional practice will improve through collaboration with other practitioners, and they will develop a better understanding of educational systems across Europe, giving them the chance to implement change in their own establishments after observing excellent practice in partner schools. The project will have huge impact, involving 4815 pupils, 428 members of teaching staff, members of local education authorities, school governing bodies and parent teacher associations, and hundreds of members of local communities. We want to ensure the project involves pupils and staff with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and skills. Therefore primary and secondary schools are both part of this project. We plan for the oldest primary pupils to work with the youngest secondary pupils because they will collaborate well and relate to each other effectively. The oldest primary pupils will also be better equipped to manage being away from home during exchange visits because they are more mature than younger members of the various primary schools. The high number of people involved in the project means participants are committed to its success and will afford the project the effort it needs and deserves in order to make a positive difference in communities across Europe. Long term benefits will include improved skills and key competencies of all involved, better international links between project partners, increased understanding of European cultural heritage, better equipped educators, more independent learners, improved skills and employability of the local community, and an improvement in community links and collaboration. Therefore the project will work towards many school, local, national, Erasmus+, and European Union goals including the reinforcement of learning networks and cross-border cooperation, increasing employability, social inclusion, 'bringing teachers from member states together to learn from each other' (ET2020), 'quality education' and 'reduced inequalities' (Global Goals), and raising awareness of Europe's cultural heritage through education.
The participating schools have recognised that the skills our learners will need as they grow and enter the world of work are as yet uncertain. It is the role of schools, as learning communities, to offer the best chances possible to our learners. Learners should leave school knowing that they have the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their goals, and these goals should be aspirational. Furthermore, in our local communities we identified a lack of skills needed to allow social mobility and self improvement. We are working to develop our schools as places of community learning, offering members of the community support to gain new skills which will promote life long learning and employability. We have learnt that this is an excellent way of encouraging our students to develop their communication and social skills during this project. Learners experienced authentic learning with a real purpose and grew in confidence whilst developing their skills. Pupils from all partner schools learnt a variety of digital competence skills with members of their family and the local community. These digital competence skills included the areas of presenting, data handling, video and audio recording and editing, coding, internet safety, data storage and many more. Staff and pupils worked together using various programmes, online resources, apps and technologies to produce presentations, teaching resources and activities. Pupils carried out research prior to the workshops to investigate what needs were present in the local community. They attended pupil exchange visits during the first year of the project to benefit from a variety of European approaches to teaching and learning and activities designed to increase their digital competencies. They developed their appreciation of other cultures and traditions across Europe. As a result of their improved skills, they were well equipped to plan and prepare community learning workshops in order to meet identified needs and will consequently provide incredibly valuable digital competence skills to many people across the various countries involved. All participants developed their digital competence skills as well as the digital competence skills of members of the community. Furthermore, they developed communication, empathy and understanding, whilst helping to increase the employability of members of the community. As a result of Covid-19, all participants actually developed their online communication and collaboration skills much further than we anticipated when planning the project. Participants are now confident to share, communicate and develop activities, skills and learning projects which were started before schools closed due to Covid-19 but have been vital throughout the last year of teaching and learning. Teachers and teaching assistants benefited as their digital competence skills improved throughout the course of the project. As well, their professional practice improved through collaboration with other practitioners. There has also been an increased focus at national and government level on schools as learning organisations and teachers carrying out regular action research. There is now an expectation for staff to participate in life long learning activities and to set an example to our pupils, sharing the benefits of continuing to learn and grow throughout our lives and as adults. This is how we are developing schools as learning organisations and this project has been an excellent base on which to work towards this goal. We will continue to organise community learning activities which we have started in this project after the completion of the project. The project partners will also continue to collaborate in order to develop best practice and share our learning and experiences. The project has had a huge impact, involving 4815 pupils, 428 members of teaching staff, members of local education authorities, school governing bodies and parent teacher associations, and hundreds of members of local communities. We planned for the oldest primary pupils to work with the youngest secondary pupils because they collaborate well and relate to each other effectively. The oldest primary pupils were also better equipped to manage being away from home during exchange visits because they are more mature than younger pupils. The high number of people involved in the project ensured that participants were committed to its success as everyone relied on each other to put in their best efforts in order to make a positive difference in communities across Europe. Long term benefits include improved skills and key competencies of all involved, better international links between project partners, increased understanding of European cultural heritage, better equipped educators, more independent learners, improved skills and employability of the local community, and an improvement in community links and collaboration.