The teaching staff of Pieksämäki upper secondary school felt a strong need to develop the teaching staff's key skills, such as courage, project operation and management skills and language skills. By participating in KA1 courses, it was possible to increase the European competence capacity of the teaching staff and thereby promote the introduction of international education as a natural part of the daily life of our school. Through raising the level of competence, internationality has become established and continues to spread into the operating culture of the entire school. The Erasmus+ KA1 project has supported the implementation and concretization of our school's mission and ensured the actors in future international projects more broadly among the teaching staff. In addition, the goal has been that in the future, our students will also be encouraged to take responsibility for promoting the school's internationalization and finding new forms of home internationalization.
While making this application, Pieksämäki upper secondary school had a need to develop the operating culture of the school so that co-operation between teachers and subjects would be strengthened and internationality would become a part of everyday school life. We had previously participated in one KA2 project and our goal was to develop the key skills of the teaching staff, such as courage, language skills and project operation and management skills. In addition, our goal was and still is to embed international project activities in Pieksämäki upper secondary school. Through this our students will gain the ability to work in different environments as well as learn multicultural skills. Our goal is also to develop the attractiveness of our school that locates in the countryside and close to the three bigger and more attractive cities in the area, thus helping to ensure that high school education is maintained in the locality. We believe that an open and international operating culture will increase the attractiveness of our high school among the youth of our community and release the pressure caused by the larger high school communities.