The project had the following principal goals: - students acquiring new vocational skills via work experience abroad under the supervision of mentors, professionals in the field - selected graduates of the graphic design programme acquiring new vocational skills via work experience at a printers’ abroad, supervised by professionals - professional development and improvement of language skills of teachers from the joiner study programme via international mobility with a subsequent transfer of skills into the teaching at our school - innovation of our teaching methods via workshops and lessons led by international experts invited to our school, with a secondary benefit of English as the language of instruction, hence contributing to the development of the students’ language skills and their getting used to lessons taught by a foreign teacher - enabling socio-economically disadvantaged students to gain international experience - making apprenticeship study programmes more attractive among current and prospective students as well as their families - incorporating a foreign language into our lessons (English) - improving the image of secondary vocational schooling Several secondary goals were tied to these principal goals.
We decided to implement the “Ziskej praxi!” project to get the school involved in a wider range of international activities. The aim was to organise Erasmus+ activities for students of all 4 study programmes at our school – the rescue worker study programme concluded with a maturita exam (a secondary school-leaving exam), and the 3 apprenticeship programmes: graphic design, upholsterer and joiner. Furthermore, we wanted to support our teachers from the joiner programme in their development, as they have not yet had the opportunity to gain professional skills abroad. We also wanted to enable selected graduates to learn in depth about the working life and acquire vocational skills. For the first time we wanted to invite international experts to participate in the teaching at our school, thus supporting those students who would not be able to travel abroad. Our further motivation was the fulfillment of the goal of improving the quality of education at our school and an improvement of the students’, graduates’, and teachers’ language skills. The project was also designed to make the study programmes we offer more attractive, especially the apprenticeship programmes, which are often sidelined when it comes to international cooperation.