The title of our project is "Our differences bring us closer together". It has three objectives. The main one is to develop our students language skills so that they become fully involved in their future and regain ambition in their orientation project. The second objective is a reflection on the essence of our identity. The aim is to understand what brings us together and distinguishes us culturally, historically, geographically, economically, socially and on a sport level, in order to break down stereotypes and change identity representations in each of our countries. In this way, we wish to strengthen the sense of belonging to the European Union, to the same European identity, a sense of belonging that is too weak for our students because of their lack of European culture and mobility opportunities. Finally, our third objective is to fight against early school dropout and to compensate for the social and cultural inequalities suffered by our students by allowing them to discover other lifestyles and different cultures, by sharing sporting values and thus helping them to forge a civic identity. All this represents a significant linguistic enrichment, cultural and social openness in a short period of time. Our project directly concerns 60 students aged 15 to 18 years old and 6 teachers involved in the project. In France, these are Year 11 students from different courses of study, chosen on a voluntary basis, who have never taken part in a European project (or even a school trip for some of them). In Denmark, the project is aimed at first-year high school students who are learning French and English. Most of them have spent a year in an educational and alternative boarding school before entering high school in order to avoid dropping out of school. These students need to find a meaning in learning. Indirectly, other actors will participate: the "big brothers/ sisters" of the partner students, the students of the "Literary Excellence" section, host families, local external actors and the school city as a whole. During their stay, the partners will live in immersion and will have to practice the language on a daily basis. They will make heritage and cultural visits that will aim at enriching their cultural knowledge and broaden their specific language knowledge. They will take classes and spend a night in the boarding school in order to live the life of a French student from the inside. They will visit educational boarding schools and meet local organizations helping youths in trouble. While putting an emphasis on fighting early school dropout, all this will enable them to compare the two educational systems and to question our differences in order to fight against stereotypes. This will be done through exchanges, sports activities, workshops, debates, discussions, "embassies", exhibitions, video production, the use of ICTs and the Twinspace platform, as well as questionnaires and surveys. Through this mobility, participants will acquire more motivation, language and ICT skills, autonomy and self-management, methodological and argumentative skills, and respect values that they can reinvest in their school curriculum and besides. We hope that all these activities will provide an exceptional opportunity for our students to become future adults who are more responsible, more civic and who can look forward to a future open to other cultures and other people both in their studies and in their professional life.
Our project was entitled "Our differences bring us together". It had three objectives. The main one was to develop our students language skills so that they could become fully involved in their future and regain ambition in their orientation project. The second objective was a reflection on the essence of our identity. The aim was to understand what brings us together and what distinguishes us culturally, historically, geographically, economically, socially and on a sport level, in order to break down stereotypes and change the identity representations in each of our countries. In this way, we wished to strengthen the sense of belonging to the European Union, to the same European identity, a sense of belonging that is too weak for our students because of their lack of European culture and mobility opportunities. Finally, our third objective was to fight against early school dropout and to compensate for the social and cultural inequalities from which our students suffer by allowing them to discover other ways of life, different cultures, by sharing sports values, thus helping them to forge a civic identity. We aimed at a significant linguistic enrichment, cultural and social openness in a short period of time. Our project directly concerned 60 students aged 15 to 18 and 6 teachers involved in the project. In France, these were Year 11 students from different courses of study, chosen on a voluntary basis and who had never taken part in a European project (or even a school trip for some of them). In Denmark, the project was aimed at first-year high school students who were learning French and English. Most of them had spent a year in an educational and alternative boarding school before entering high school in order to avoid dropping out of school. These students needed to find a meaning in learning. Within the framework of our project, with the French students, we should have gone to Denmark at the end of March 2020. However, because of the events related to COVID-19, we could not make this mobility and had postponed it to the end of October 2020. Due to the deteriorated health situation, we still could not carry out the mobility and we had the greatest difficulty to be refunded the advanced expenses (tour operator and expenses advanced by our Danish hosts for our reservations in Denmark). The request to postpone the final date of the project was accepted by the Agency. While waiting for new dates, we tried with our Danish host to find a way to complete our project using other tools. For example, the French students produced their Chinese portraits: an imaginative way to introduce themselves to their future Danish hosts. Their presentations were posted on the project's Twinspace. To do so, the students chose different media: slideshows, letters, videos, audios, etc. The students chose to use French but also English to exchange with the Danish students. The French students also developed an interactive quiz on French culture that was posted on the project's Twinspace. The goal was for the Danish students to confront it, answer the questions and then continue the research to refine their knowledge of our culture. The French students also posted presentations that shed light on the issue: What shapes our identity? The Danish students read them. Following this, the Danish students shared their local, historical and geographical particularities. Exchanges followed, allowing us to deconstruct stereotypes and to highlight common ground. While we had agreed on mobilities in March and April 2022, our exchanges stopped short following a request made by the Danish headmistress to cancel the project because our two Danish leaders could not carry on with it (sick leave and paternity leave). Unfortunately, no postponement was then granted. Therefore, none of the activities related to the mobilities could take place. Even though we were not able to complete the project and carry out the planned mobilities, the students were able to improve their language and ICT skills, their autonomy and self-management, their methodological and argumentative skills which they will be able to reinvest in their school curriculum and in their everyday life. They were also able to reflect on what distinguishes us and brings us closer together and to create links that still last today with their partners who have become correspondents and friends.