The objectives were to: • Create friendships & working relationships between staff and learners, both those going on the mobilities & at home. • Enrich the educational experience for learners & staff at the partner organisations • Create a habit of the partners consulting with each other about developments and ideas and sharing in each other’s successes. • Demonstrate via dissemination activities that the partnership inspired new practices and the students’ lives were richer and more successful. Develop new ways of working collaboratively both internally and externally Identifying and sharing the specific skills that develop will be part of the outcomes of the project. Thinking creatively and collaboratively across roles (eg, teacher vs student), sectors and countries, will be a key outcome. To produce a range of new ways of working, new content, new ideas and different approaches and perspectives on existing ways of working – tested on different audiences and prepared for implementation. To give students more of a voice and profile about European experience. SRUC & Scottish ministers are looking to reconfigure education to include more practical experience and less academic focus and sought to learn from the Swedish model.
Wide Open World in Europe project sought to give ambitious students in hairdressing, horse care, and dairy management in Scotland the chance to open up their world by getting to know another country through working and learning with a group of their peers from home and a classful of peers in Sweden. Through previous exposure to European experiences with incoming students the learners had started to gain an interest in learning and working abroad, but until now, had not had that chance. The consortium partners knew how powerful Erasmus Mobilities are for driving personal and professional growth, and broadening horizons. We wanted to make European exchanges an integral part of the organisations’ offer, and to use this project to introduce the learners to working in Europe so they could progress to making their own connections. This project whilst small took a holistic supportive approach to the learners intended to give them many opportunities to build on their learning and experience. Whilst the Project got off to a great start with the first cohort of learners and staff from the Rainbow Academy going to Sweden and the second cohort from SRUC recruited and ready to go then COVID struck and the original plan was no longer viable.