The three licei, which were competitors traditionally, formed a partnership in order to tackle common challenges by uniting strengths in a European perspective. They tried to respond to the necessity of finding common tools for the enhancement, the development and the assessment of entrepreneurial, global and digital competence of their students. The idea was to find new paths that would stimulate planning, creativity and civil awareness and to ensure that all students, even those of different ethnicities, could have the same opportunities to enter the job market or continue with higher education. The challenge for our schools was: - to develop in teachers the necessary planning, teaching and evaluation skills for the effective realization of an inclusive, innovative and quality teaching based on skills, through a methodological approach capable of encouraging the development of soft skills and promoting collaborative, laboratory and multimedia, also thanks to personalized interventions particularly suitable for the diversity of foreign students; -to develop methods and tools to promote in students, as "future workers" and "citizens", skills recognized on a professional level and in civic and social responsibility and participation.
The S.TE.P.S. project was the result of the joint cooperation of three Scientific Licei (Secondary schools) in Parma which stemmed from the necessity to equip the teachers of the three schools with resources and tools necessary to enhance the curriculum and teaching methodology through the design of innovative learning environments and the definition of tools for the evaluation of skills to be integrated in ordinary assessment procedures. A common specific objective of the three schools was the promotion of active citizenship and the willingness to learn transversal innovative methods and approaches to teaching through new technologies in order to supply all students with the tools and competences to become active and productive citizens in a perspective of long life learning.