European gastronomy, just like the cultural heritage it belongs to, is a complex topic that permeates many fields. It has its geologic and historical roots in specific territories, helps define a nation, contributes to the economic development of a region and appears in artistic creations. Hence, catering schools are very lucky to be able to link their core subject to so many other school subjects in an inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary approach. Our project includes six catering schools with similar structures, pupils, curricula and objectives. All schools, if not all teachers, have some experience in Erasmus+ and international projects and this project is part of each school’s European Development Plan and their internationalisation strategies. We all share the same commitments: preparing our students for the labour market, broadening their horizons, adding a European dimension to their personal and professional lives. We want to help them improve their professional, analytical, language, IT, cultural, social and soft skills because this will help them enter the job market and become enlightened citizens. Since all our schools are vocational, work-based learning will be the main learning approach but we will also study gastronomy in its links to other subjects: History, Geography, Economy, Arts, Languages. Pupils will get a better insight in their country’s gastronomic culture and will learn, from their peers, about other gastronomies. They will use English to communicate with their European counterparts and will gain self-confidence and autonomy. The project will include the whole Hospitality Departments in each school, even if not all pupils will be able to take part in a physical mobility. About 150 to 200 pupils aged 15 to 19 will play an active part in the tasks we will set them over the course of the 2-year long project and about 70 of them have educational difficulties, face social or economic obstacles or cultural differences. Overcoming skills mismatches is one of our priorities and we hope that by working on basic skills and soft skills, we will help the pupils who have fewer opportunities improve their ability to interact in society and their employability. The project will propose a great variety of activities and use many digital tools, including eTwinning and a Twinspace, to maximise the number of participants. Pupils from other departments will also play a part when their school plays host. All along the project, pupils will have to carry out common tasks that follow the course of a menu. They will produce recipes, presentations, analyses that will be included in a cookbook to be edited at the end of the project. All productions will also be available on the Twinspace and on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform. We will also organise mobilities in each school and the programmes will always include a special time having the pupils work together in the restaurant or the kitchen. Participants will visit local food and wine producers (to emphasise the links with the economy of the territory), to restaurants or hotels (with professional objectives) or to museums or places of interest to see the connections between gastronomy and other school subjects like Arts or History. All partner schools cooperated and communicated efficiently in the application process and we have shared responsibilities according to the strengths and desires of each school. We will organise regular video-conferences and will exchange by email or with the WhatsApp group we have created. We have planned a joint staff training event at the beginning of the project as a team-building exercise as we all share a professional development experience. We hope that the project will have a positive impact on the pupils’ and the teachers’ well-being and professional skills. We want to increase their motivation and believe that such a project could have a positive impact on the school climates. We will create a cookbook and each school will have paper copies that may be used in the future to create European menus or in English lessons. We have also created a Twinspace and all the materials posted on it will still be available to all partners after the end of the project. Some schools may decide to continue working together and the experience gained in this project will help them in their future endeavours. Other schools may benefit from the experience of their partners in other types of Erasmus+ programmes (KA102, KA202) and decide to implement new projects. Our dissemination activities will ensure that as many pupils as possible can benefit from the project. We will organise conferences open to all pupils, parents, teachers and representatives of the local communities. We will use different media to reach a local, regional or even national audience and to highlight the instrumental part Erasmus+ plays in the personal and professional fulfilment of pupils and teachers and in the internationalisation strategies of the schools.
In 2019, six European catering colleges have decided to join forces to carry out an Erasmus+ project on the theme of European gastronomy. This theme allows for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary reflection on many subjects: the history, geology and economic development of territories, local and national traditions, the arts... Our six schools have a lot in common and most of the teachers had already taken part in Erasmus+ or international projects. This new project was part of the European development plan and the internationalisation strategies of each school. Our objectives are multiple: to help students enter the labour market, to open new horizons for them and to give a European dimension to their personal and professional careers. To do this, we must encourage them to develop their professional, analytical, linguistic, IT, cultural and social skills. We must do everything possible to help them become enlightened citizens. Our teaching approach was naturally focused on professional practice and technological knowledge, but we also wanted to study the links between gastronomy and other disciplines such as History, Geography, Economics, Arts and Languages. We wanted to help students gain a better understanding of their local and national gastronomies and to discover, through their peers, other European gastronomies. We wanted as many pupils as possible to be involved in the project, even though we knew that only a minority would be able to participate in a physical mobility. Almost 250 pupils from different catering classes took an active part in the project, either by participating in common tasks or by taking part in activities when their schools hosted their partners. Some of these pupils had educational difficulties or faced social, economic or cultural obstacles or even a handicap. We made every effort to enable pupils with fewer opportunities to be fully involved in the project and offered a variety of activities. From the application stage, we had decided to ask pupils to carry out common tasks on themes related to gastronomy. These tasks followed the "chronology" of a meal, from the aperitif to the dessert. Our project's Twinspace allowed us to easily publish the pupils' productions (recipes, presentations, analyses) and we also uploaded them on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform. They were all compiled in a cookbook published at the end of the project. The covid-19 crisis naturally had an impact on our project. We had to cancel a mobility in France in March 2020 and the physical mobilities could not be resumed until spring 2022. We maintained a link between the teams and the students thanks to the common tasks and some video-conferences. In the end, we managed to organise 6 mobilities out of the 7 initially planned. The first one was a joint staff training and this experience brought the group together. A group mobility of pupils followed in February 2022 just before the beginning of the sanitary crisis. We were able to resume the mobilities in 2022 and we organised four exchanges. In the end, only the mobility to Croatia could not take place. The mobilities allowed the pupils to work together in professional practice classes, to visit local producers, hotels, museums and to share moments of life. The cooperation and communication between the partners were effective and made it possible to carry out this project despite the difficulties. We shared tasks according to each other's abilities and exchanged regularly by email, video-conferences or WhatsApp. The project has definitely had a positive impact on the pupils and teachers. Their professional skills and motivation have increased and the physical mobilities have created a special bond between the pupils and their teachers. The school climate improved and pupils gained in autonomy and self-confidence. The experience acquired in the implementation of this project will help schools to carry out new projects. We were keen to promote our project and disseminate the results. We organised conferences for pupils, parents, teachers and local representatives. We published articles in different media to make our project known to a local, regional and even national audience. In these articles, we have emphasised the important role of the Erasmus+ programme in these projects which contribute to the personal and professional development of pupils and staff and to the internationalisation strategies of schools.