After visiting the previous project sites and in consultation with representatives of the fortified church management office and the responsible pastors of the district consistory, we were able to determine the first concrete project tasks for restoration and surface design for the different trades - carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers and painters and varnishers. Even at this planning stage, we always make sure that the tasks are aligned in such a way that close cooperation between the students from the different trades is guaranteed. Each student should be able to look over the other's shoulder in order to gain learning experience, which on the one hand demonstrates the necessity of sensible cooperation between the individual trades, and on the other hand enables the students to acquire skills and knowledge in the related trades. The whole work order should be seen as a representation of a professional reality, as it determines the agenda on the most diverse construction sites. A central consideration is the approach of action-oriented training. Here we have used the method of the complete action. This approach promotes the development of our participants' professional skills. The effectiveness of this method in terms of comprehensive learning processes is a further step towards the development of professional action competence in our trainees.
At the WorldSkills Competition in 2013 in Leipzig, the world's largest professional education event, we had the chance to discuss the matter of working together in vocational education projects with colleagues and the project "Fortified Churches" in Transylvania came into our focus. In 2011 the school for building trade in Munich in cooperation with the vocational training center for building and carpentry started preserving and renovating the fortified church in Mardisch/Transsylvania in the framework of the named EU-project. For us, as a vocational training center for painters and carsprayers, with the objective of training regionally/ nationally specific coating techniques it seemed to be just natural to join the initiative and contribute to the project of restructuring and renovating the fortified church in Martinsdorf. In the framework of the first mobilities it became clear very quickly that for a further professional renovation of the church and the surrounding buildings a close cooperation between different crafts would be essential for a successful continuation of the project work. In consequence the idea and the intention were born to bring in further craftmanship to continue with the original project initiated by the school for the building trade.