Over the years, ideas about development with a view to interculturality and the European idea have found their way into our school's mission statement, for example, where considerations about values and self-image form the basis. The special feature of the European class is the work "on the child" in a different cultural context, a different language, in a foreign environment on the basis of a deeper examination of educational systems and institutions in other European countries. Our students interact with children and adults, exchange ideas, work together, make friends, gain experience and have the opportunity for personal and professional development through immersion in a foreign context. This goal applies in particular to those trainees for whom long-term mobility was planned. It should also be achieved through first-time mobilities for teachers that there is also professional exchange and professional input (also on the comparability of curricula) at the teacher level with regard to the training of educators.
Since 2003, the Mathilde Weber School in Tübingen has had the so-called "European class" as a special section of the two-year vocational school for social pedagogy. This profile is a reason for some trainees to apply at our school and not, for example, near their home. The 2019-2021 project was carried out to continue this tradition and to provide our future graduates with continuous professional experience in other European countries. For the first time in this project, we have planned mobilities for teachers as well as several long-term internships for trainees who have completed the school part of their training or who wanted to take the opportunity to gain professional experience abroad immediately after completing their training. The reason for us to include this target group in the project was the great interest and requests from trainees who were already able to complete Erasmus+ internships of several weeks in the course of their training. Interest in foreign mobility on the part of teachers was particularly aroused by the exchange with Irish educators, but also teachers for whom our school was the host organisation in 2018.