By giving our students internships in companies in France and Spain, we primarily aimed to broaden their professional knowledge by exploring new working methods and techniques. In terms of personal development, we pursued self-reliance, problem-solving thinking and courage. Communication skills in a foreign language play an important role here. Integrating young people with disabilities into mainstream education is very important at our school. At our first European mobilities, we took up the challenge with a broad team to send a deaf student on an internship to France. Also in Spain, a student with special needs took part in an internship abroad. As this was our first Erasmus+ project, being flexible as a school became an important objective. Just as we encourage problem-solving thinking in our students, we strived for a streamlined integration of the foreign interns into our educational organisation in cooperation with our school board and management.
Our school offers technical and vocational courses in construction, woodworking, (electro)mechanics, welding, pipefitting, industrial sciences, electricity, electronics, ICT, printing and graphic communication. These courses prepare our students for higher education and the job market. Creativity, lifelong learning, social competences and entrepreneurship are key objectives in our various graduate programmes. Workplace learning has contributed to achieving these goals for many years. With the project "to the next level through borderless learning", we are taking our first steps in the Erasmus+ programme. Through internships abroad, we give an extra dimension to workplace learning. It gives students a unique opportunity to develop their language skills in real-life contexts, discover new cultures and customs. In this way, our students go beyond their own environment and broaden their worldview. We also invite students from foreign partner schools. In this way, we highlight the power of diversity throughout our school.