Through the mobilities and shared best practice examples the travelling teachers improved their professional profile by implementing new competences and experience in the specific fields of: - education of the gifted and talented (Begabtenförderung), - positive motivation - supporting children's talents, - teaching students with special needs, - integration of students with behavioural issues (ADHD), - "School on the Move" (bewegtes Lernen) and outdoor education, - school development, - bilingual teaching, - German as second language, - multi lingual education, - health education - Fit for School Fit for Life.
Our middle school is an institution of extraordinary resources to accommodate the plurilingual and multilingual climate with students from all over the world. But however we are more and more confronted with students with various difficulties and special needs: Behaviour problems, learning and concentration deficits, hyperactivity, psychological and emotional problems and many more. Besides that we should not forget about our gifted students and the students' talents in general and the impact of positive motivation and gifted education! We piloted the "Begabungssiegel" for Middle Schools and wanted to find more expertise in other successful European countries, such as Finland. With the help and experience of our Finish partner schools we wanted to improve our competences in the fields of motivating challenging students - both gifted and problematic students. Our acquired competences should help our students to develop learner autonomy and a commitment to lifelong learning as a powerful factor in intellectual development. As a school with a language initiative, we also wanted to initialize projects to promote European citizenship, plurilingualism and multiculturalism and to share experience and best practice examples with another bilingual school. Positive motivation methods should make the students aware of their own learning processes and of using their talents, setting their own goals and taking them as a personal challenge. The methodology of gifted education is clearly innovative and highly motivating, improving academic performances and decreasing early school dropout.