For our professional advance and to give a real and up-to-date European dimension to our teaching, the Erasmus + Permanent Commission has established 3 fundamental objectives: a) Promoting the integral formation of students considering their intellectual, physical, and psychic development through the promotion of healthy life habits (physical activity, balanced diet...). Health training is a fundamental aspect in the training of responsible, independent adults who manage their personal abilities at all levels. b) Creating awareness of European citizenship. As European citizens and education professionals, we understand that we must encourage collaboration and cooperation among equals, to train future active citizens with full rights and obligations. We want to help students feel European citizenship as a strategy that encourages their personal development. c) Continuing to improve our linguistic competence in English so that languages are not an impediment, but rather an opportunity for development and collaboration, opening new perspectives of work and cooperation.
Our school, IES María Guerrero, has 27 years of experience already. In the last 5 years, it has undergone some important changes: the number of students continues to increase, due to the growing demand, and new educational lines have been consolidated, such as Vocational Training. On the other hand, we have been an English bilingual high school for 6 years, which has been a challenge in acquiring the linguistic competence of the entire educational community. This community has been constantly renewed in recent years, increasing its dynamism and concerns to give different responses to the demands of this changing society in which our students are immersed. In this sense, 5 years ago we began our opening towards Europe, creating a European development plan that has led us to work on four Erasmus KA101 projects (including this one). All these projects have been enriching our teaching work with international experiences, giving us the chance to exchange thoughts, methods, and expectations. They have also made us aware of the need to outline, complete, and improve this European Development Plan, already started, incorporating the acquired experience, and trying to respond to new challenges, adapting to the real perspectives of what a bilingual educational school and a European educational school should be. In this line of action, we have obtained the Erasmus Accreditation 2021-2027. As a result, we have forged a growing enthusiasm towards a true internationalization of our teaching work, which has a direct and positive impact on our students. Also, IES María Guerrero has developed a great desire for methodological renewal and a true spirit of cooperative teamwork. Consequently, we are now able to better specify the needs of our institution, always in terms of European development and modernization of teaching. In order to consolidate and improve the path to Europeanization and internationalization of our school, we have set ourselves the objectives proposed by the Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in the Framework of Education and Cooperation (ET2020) and in the new document "Reinforcement of European identity through education and culture". This new document sets out a vision for the year 2025 of a Europe where learning, study, and research are not hampered by borders; where all citizens are offered high-quality inclusive education, training, and lifelong learning. In short, we consider the European cooperation and mobility a fundamental pillar in the comprehensive education of our students. It gives support and meaning to the bilingual education that we provide, and it responds to the demands for updates and constant improvement of the teaching process.