The main objective of the project was to contribute to the achievement of the institution's goals as well as to fulfil the professional and other personal needs of the participants. The project involved individual mobilities which were expected to provide learning results necessary to establish a 21st century school and to enhance the foreign language and digital competences as well as the mental wellbeing of the participants. We also expected the project to have an impact on the institution and beyond by disseminating the learning outcomes. We expected that the professional knowledge of the other colleagues would improve and also that they would be more motivated to participate in similar projects in the future, which would lead to the pedagogical modernisation of the institution. Moreover, we hoped that as a result of the dissemination events the coherence of the teaching staff would be stronger, the communication among the staff members would improve and the school climate would become better. We also expected that the trainings held in international settings would enable the participants to build their professional and personal network, which could be the basis of expanding the internationalisation programme of the school.
Although acquiring mainly factual knowledge is still an essential admission requirement for most Hungarian universities, which cannot be overlooked, in order to settle into today’s and the future labour market our pupils also need digital and foreign language competences and certain 21st century skills which are very difficult or impossible to develop with traditional teaching methods. Teacher training is key to the necessary paradigm shift. It is essential for the teaching staff to acquire competences enabling them to facilitate and promote the development of the mentioned competences and skills. However, finding the right form of training is fundamental. For overloaded and underpaid teaching staff on the brink of burn-out we need to find forms of training which are affordable and offer opportunities for both professional development and improvement of the participants' mental health. A mentally balanced teaching staff with modern pedagogical attitude is beneficial to school climate, which is crucial to the pupils’ academic achievement as well as social and personal development. We submitted a project proposal as we are convinced that participating in the programme will contribute to achieving our needs and objectives.