Our goal was to increase well-being at work and resilience for both staff and students. The results of well-being surveys conducted for students were concerning, and our goal was to find tools for new situations by developing our own professional skills to increase students´ motivation and well-being through courses appropriate to our theme and through European collaborative projects. We hoped to improve the commitment of our Spanish and Italian students to learn the optional languages and provide them with authentic language experiences. Equally, we aimed to make knowledge and participation visible. We already do a lot of great things at school, but we wanted to bring them out to increase everyone's motivation. Sharing the best practices on shared digital platforms is easy and we hoped to reduce the workload by networking and sharing of know-how.
Lauttasaaren yhteiskoulu is an independent secondary school in Helsinki. Our school includes comprehensive school and Lauttasaari High School for International Business, KVL. We offer a broad selection of foreign language studies. We have language immersion studies (Finnish and Swedish) and language enriched studies (English). The students can also take science studies or join the sports program. Lauttasaari High School for International Business offers two programs: the General Study Program and the International Business Study Program. Our project "I see you, I hear you" was developed to improve both students´ and staff´s well-being. The pandemic changed and increased workload and it negatively impacted both students´and staff´s welfare, which had been routinely reported in surveys. We were seeking funding for professional development courses, student exchanges and preparatory visits, which also included job shadowing. The name of our project suggests that the time behind the masks widened the gaps between each other and therefore it was time to turn ourselves towards each other. We felt that we needed, and still do need, more European cooperation, networking and integration.