By choosing the “inclusion and diversity in all fields of education, training, youth and sport” priority, our objectives were: - to develop values of mutual respect, cooperation, camaraderie as well as challenging stereotypes by embedding inclusion of all student profiles at the heart of the project. - to enable students from different backgrounds to learn from each other by sharing common experiences as well as respecting and celebrating differences. - to enable the French and German students to learn from each other’s local academic and economic opportunities (aerospace and car manufacturing industries) within the EU free movement framework. One of our more academic priorities was to develop certain key skills: - strengthening horizontal skills: searching for information, communicating, committing to a project, and contributing to a group. - strengthening of modern foreign language and physical education skills.
The hard facts around the socio-economic background of a large majority of our students as well as the PISA findings concerning students’ socio-economic status and performance were the starting points for our Erasmus + small scale partnership project. We had been convinced for some time by how beneficial an international school exchange project would be for our students and how enthusiastic they would be to discover different countries, cultures, and ways of life. On the other hand, we were often somewhat dismayed by the inability of the families to fund such a trip for their child. We therefore saw the project as a great way to answer two important needs: the need for a broadening of cultural horizons on an international scale (even more so for students with special educational needs) and the need to financially support families strongly willing to see their children engage in such an exchange.