It was planned that over the whole duration of the Erasmus+ project, a total of 30 trainees from several departments (Social Studies College, Nursing Care College and the dual training) of the BBS Westerburg would participate in the project. The plan was for 4 to 8-week internships with our partners in the European network Xarxa. During their work placement, the participants were to gain new perspectives for their professional actions and to additionally expand their professional skills and competences. In the course of their foreign language and elective classes, the participants were prepared for intercultural communication in English. A deepening of language skills and intercultural competences was then to take place during their stay abroad. Another aim of the project was to expand the participants' personal skills. The overall aim of this Erasmus+ project was to extend our international activities across all departments of our school in order to increase its attractiveness and the quality of our vocational training in the long term.
The Erasmus+ project "Apprentices gain professional experience through internships in Europe" is based in the quality programme of BBS Westerburg, from which our European Development Plan is derived. As a vocational school, we place a clear emphasis on internships in Europe in order to prepare our students for future professional and social requirements and challenges. In doing so, we want to make international activities possible across all educational departments of BBS Westerburg in the long term. For us as a vocational school, the project is a unique selling point compared to the grammar schools in our region and increases the attractiveness of our school for future students across all qualifications we offer. In the long-term, we would in particular like to increase our efforts for an international element in our dual-training courses for apprentices. In this way, we would like to further improve the cooperation with the companies that train apprentices in order to even better qualify the workforce for our region.