By implementing this project, we wanted to provide an opportunity for our students to: (1) gain knowledge, skills and competences related to their vocational area by participating in an European work experience placement (2) gain a range of valuable personal skills (3) gain a greater sense of European identity (4) enhance their employment prospects and improve their career prospects. We wanted to provide opportunities for our teachers to: (1) exchange experiences with teachers from different countries who work in the same vocational field (2) share best practice in teaching and learning to create a better classroom experience for their students (3) explore and develop new teaching methods and to disseminate this learning to colleagues (4) gain practical ideas for how they can incorporate new techniques into their existing lessons (5) gain interesting insights into the curricula provided by partner organisations in the same vocational field (6) explore the use of technology enhanced learning. In the longer term we wanted to develop sustainable cooperation with a number of compatible European partners.
BFEI made it's first application for Erasmus+ funding in 2017. Encouraged by the success of that project and two subsequent mobility projects, we applied for funding for this, our fourth project, in order to expand the Erasmus+ activities in our College and in our ETB. This was our first project that combined both staff and student mobilities. BFEI hoped to achieve the following objectives by implementing this project: (1) to improve, expand and modernise work experience opportunities offered to BFEI students (2) to provide new opportunities for Continuous Professional Development for our Teachers in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning in our classrooms by providing job shadowing opportunities with colleagues in a similar vocational area (3) to improve the European dimension of our College/ETB. Erasmus+ programs provide an excellent opportunity for Further Education students and staff to engage in international learning experiences.