When we applied for this project our school had only been working in Erasmus for a few years. The first year there were two mobilities and of teachers, then we incorporated a few students, then more... This year we already intended to launch ourselves into the internationalisation of Vocational Training in our school, covering ALL our professional families, and for this we applied for many student mobilities and also for an Erasmus pro as a test. A second objective is that we have NEVER worked with intermediary companies and we have managed to continue this good practice, with more and more partners with whom we exchange students. It costs us the work of managing our mobilities and taking care of incoming foreign students. The third objective was that this project should contribute to INTERNATIONALISING the school in general terms. Experience tells us that for every student who goes abroad for an internship, ten lose their fear of it. It is common to have problems finding students who want to travel (language, fear of the unknown) and who, despite showing initial interest, eventually withdraw from the process with inconsistent excuses.
IES Leonardo da Vinci in Alicante is a public school located in one of the most disadvantaged areas of the city of Alicante, which has the sixth lowest family income in Spain. The centre, to date, has around 2000 students of 46 nationalities who are taught by 185 teachers. In the area of Vocational Training, although not all of them live in the area where the centre is located, they do have a very modest socio-economic level, which makes them worthy of all the social assistance available to them. In the case of the Erasmus experience, we believe that it is a unique opportunity for our students that should be used to give it the purpose for which it was created: to improve the training and the European feeling of our students. That is why in this project we are NOT asking for mobilities for teachers, ONLY for internships in companies for students.