The aim of mobilities and improving communication skills by our school staff was to build a school with strong European values where educational projects carried out with other European schools would become a priority. We expected to improve our students’ language skills (especially in English), to start off an extended European multilateral collaboration, and to make our school an educational leader in the local community. Owing to mobilities, teachers were to acquire language competences in order to have tools to carry out European projects dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship, coding and programming, sport as well as foreign language. These are the key fields for our school to gain a sufficient recognition in the local environment. The project was expected also to facilitate the implementation of pedagogical innovation in the form of a bilingual common room (after-school activities for students in 1-3 grades) and to enrich the school's work plan with foreign language classes (German and Spanish) starting from the 5th grade. Our goal was also to make the school staff familiar with the principles of functioning of the Erasmus+ program in order to effectively implement international cooperation in the next step.
The school staff (Szkoła Podstawowa nr 72 in Poznań, Poland) participated in the project in order to improve their communication skills by attending intensive language courses either in English or German. At the time of applying for the Erasmus+ grant, SP72 was a newly established primary school (it was transformed from a middle school after the school reform had been implemented in Poland) with low results in national exams that students take in the 8th grade, with poor recognition in the local community. Teachers didn’t have any experience in carrying out projects with European schools nor adequate self-esteem to feel empowered to take initiative. On top of that teachers had no opportunities to develop their speaking skills in a foreign language.