The Freiherr-vom-Stein School Hünfelden has had a student exchange with the Collège Gaston Flament in Marcheprime (near Bordeaux) since September 2019. Both schools could observe a strongly decreasing number of pupils in the last years with their former exchange schools, who were willing to choose French or German as second foreign language or if they had chosen it, the willingness to participate in the existing exchange was missing. The Freiherr vom Stein School, which also has a secondary school branch, even found that more than a third of the pupils dropped out of French after eighth grade. This gave rise to the idea of making foreign languages and exchange more attractive with a project to counteract these phenomena. In cooperation with the art teachers, the French and German teachers then developed the project: Learning languages through art. In order to appeal to the students, street art was chosen, of which both cities in the immediate vicinity also have much to offer. This project pursues several goals at once. On the one hand, the schools hope to increase the pupils' motivation to learn the respective foreign language. Through constant communication in the foreign language, the language competence in the respective foreign language should be improved. By working with contemporary art, the pupils' interest in art in general is to be awakened and visits to museums and galleries are to be positively influenced. This project will involve 14 pupils each, together with one foreign language teacher and one art teacher from each of the two schools. The pupils will get to know each other in Paris, where they will also have their first experiences with the topic of street art. Different districts and galleries will be visited, admired and a collage will be created together. Thus Vitry-SUR-Seine, the Street Art city offers house corners, an electric pole or a lamppost, creations of all kinds. Or the centre of Paris, from the Halles district to the home of Serge Gainsbourg, where the walls of the city centre serve as a playground for artists. These visits should give the pupils a first impression and motivate them to exchange impressions and feelings with their exchange partner in the foreign language. In addition, the pupils will discover 150 works by artists in the first museum of French urban art, Art 42, accompanied by a guide. With these experiences and impressions we will continue together in Bordeaux. Here a joint tour of the city of Bordeaux will take place under the guidance of Magnetic ArtLab. The students' attention will be drawn to fresco and graffiti. In addition, the gallery Le M.U.R will be visited with the purpose of making a video report about the street art scene in Bordeaux in French and German. This can then be shown in both countries as a result. On another day, a workshop will be held in Bègles, in a former factory, in order to design a certain part of the schoolyard with the acquired knowledge.These findings and results will then be compared with street art in Germany. A visit to the Naxos workshops in Frankfurt is planned. There the participation in workshops will be organized. Students can work in groups with their exchange partners to spray canvases, which can be rolled up and taken along.With the knowledge acquired there and in France, the joint design of a wall on the school grounds is on the agenda. Here too, joint communication, exchange and social skills are very important.In order to inform the school community about what has been done, an exhibition in the school or in an extracurricular place, e.g. a savings bank or in the town hall of the community is planned.For this purpose the pupils should design a flyer for the exhibition, which should be trilingual, in German-French-English and with photos and pictures selected by the pupils. We expect an intensive cooperation and examination of the foreign languages and an increased motivation to engage in art. We also hope for a long-term enhancement of the foreign language and the exchange.

Career orientation for the European Job MarketMany firms operate globally and employee mobility is a prerequisite. Students must be prepared to be mobile, adaptable and continually learning. There is a need for them to get to know the work place in other countries. Six European countries, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Portugal and Turkey, with 280 pupils, have carried out this project. All of the teachers have experience in instructing vocational preparation. We supported our students entirely according to their individual capabilities and skills so that after their schooling, they are prepared for the job market. We were able to avoid premature school leaving by helping the students realize their talents and abilities and developing these.Exploring the career training environment and comparing one’s own competence profile with the requirements for training in European businesses are important prerequisites for career choice and a successful transition to the business and work world. With the aid of the career choice passport, pupils were able to come to terms with their own personal strengths (What can I do?) and with their interests, goals and commitments (What do I want?)The following actions were undertaken: Compiling a project homepage, work with the career choice passport, preparing presentations about companies in the partner countries, compiling CV and job applications, visiting companies, the creation of an international job exchange market and skilled craft activities in the work experience field.Our pupils were motivated to apply their talents in the working environment. When pupils discover their own abilities this boosts their self-confidence and self-esteem. If we can achieve this goal, then lower grade students can participate together with higher grade students in projects without fear of inferiority. In particular, lower grade students must be encouraged so that with their abilities (e.g. in skilled trades) they can present themselves with complete confidence.With this project we prepared our pupils for the labour market and gave them the opportunity of work experience in other European countries. We want to equip our students for a life and career in a globally responsible Europe. This European dimension lied at the heart of our project and our schools.

The project has been a great success - initial objectives have been met and exceeded in some areas. The project set out to increase children’s passion for reading, enabling them to access learning more successfully and result in higher attainment throughout their education and become lifelong learners. Through the range of activities and events held, children’s enthusiasm for reading and literature-based activities has increased. Through the project, many children have had increased access to literature and opportunities to perform. Extra support was given to families where barriers to learning were present (immigrants, educational, financial, etc). This has resulted in improved relationships not only with the children, but also the wider community. Initial project activities included: sharing photos of favourite reading places, creating Top Ten book lists for individual classes, school exhibitions, learning about favourite authors and writing book reviews. These were all shared across the partner schools. All schools studied a national author of choice, reading their books and hosting Book Days to celebrate work and enjoy the books. Local authors visited schools, delivering workshops and hosting Q and A sessions. Each school created a Big Book of a traditional tale from their country, written in the mother tongue and translated into English. An audio version of the book was also produced. Schools produced their own performances of stories to outside audiences. Staff noticed a raise in self-esteem in some children as a result of the project: those who were reluctant to take part in class activities became more confident and engaged. Others with behavioural issues became more focused and enjoyed success. Via the sharing of teaching strategies across the partner schools, staff now have access to a wider range of successful methods for the teaching of reading. During each visit, the host school provided a range of workshops focusing on reading strategies. These covered a range of areas – phonics, guided reading, SEND, comprehension, additional-language learning, etc. As a result, these examples of best practice strategies have been incorporated into partner schools’ teaching and learning. Monk Fryston has recently become part of a multi-academy trust and so other schools within the trust will also benefit from the sharing of these reading strategies, thus spreading the work of the project even wider. As a result of the project, children now also have a fuller understanding and enjoyment of partner country languages, cultures and traditions. They thoroughly enjoyed writing penpal letters, cards, making bookmarks, etc for their european friends. Even the older children looked forward excitedly to their next correspondence. Staff believe the students now have a higher level of interest for language learning as they progress to secondary education. Reading attainment has risen across partner schools, although this cannot be wholly due to the project. However, we strongly believe that the new-found enthusiasm for reading may contribute to this success. The questionnaires completed at the end of the project demonstrate a higher understanding and appreciation of the languages, customs and traditions in each partner country. The children certainly know more about each country than at the start of the project and are eager to learn more. The reading questionnaires demonstrate an upturn in students’ desire to read and in how long they read for on average a week. Results show a much higher level of interest in reading books written by each country’s national author and a wider range of genres being read.

Education Systems in Europe from nursery through to professional lifeIn this project we want to extend our knowledge of education systems in Europe and to compare them with one another. We are living together in one Europe and want to learn from one another, work together and get to know each other well. It is necessary to extend our knowledge of education systems in other countries, as here the requirements for working professionally in Europe are defined.Six European schools from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece and Turkey with 280 pupils wish to implement this project. The students participating are between the ages of 12 and 15. From our school, mainly pupils from elementary and secondary school who have for the most part German as their mother tongue, will participate. Thus, they will be able to work well with pupils from partner schools from any school form as the language of the project is German and this advantage helps to build confidence in weaker pupils. The activities are creating a project homepage, preparing presentations on our education systems from nursery through to professional life, we will cooperate on assignments, acquire knowledge on different school forms within our education systems, visit companies and universities. For our six learn, teaching and training activities all pupils will prepare a short profile to introduce themselves. All schools work on all topics beginning with presentations on work in nursery followed by primary, orientation, secondary I and II, vocational with apprenticeship and universities.Anticipated results: Pupils and teachers acquire knowledge about good practices in our education systems, learn about education systems in partner countries, develop digital competence, develop social competence, improve foreign language skills, broaden interest in Europe and other cultures, make new contacts in Europe. We want to prepare our pupils for living and working in a Europe which is aware of its global responsibility. This European dimension defines our project and our schools.

Diversity and Integration We find ourselves at a time when refugees are fleeing to Europe in order to escape war and oppression. Most of the students involved in the project realized that the integration of refugees and migrants is essential for a peaceful coexistence. Our students became aware of their global responsibility and understand that nationalistic politics can provide no solution in a globalized world. Our students celebrated with the refugee children in integration classes and assisted them with learning the German language. Reciprocally they learnt about the culture of the new children.The students should understand that in the professional world international dependency exists and that people from different cultural backgrounds must work together.During our project meetings we visited very different firms. There the pupils learned about the international dependency of the firms and several pupils could envisage working in another country. In this project we wanted to eliminate prejudice against foreigners. Our short term training class and working activities certainly assisted in this.Working together in international groups provided the children with lots of fun and prejudices and generalization were forgotten.This project was conducted by six schools from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Turkey, together with 300 students. The cooperation was excellent, all pupils worked on presentations, plays and texts.We wanted to compare the work of the different schools to discover how the best possible integration of refugees and migrants can be achieved in our schools. In the Integration Classes the Europaschule Gladenbach presented the work to the partner schools, we demonstrated how we worked with migrants and of course learned about the work of our partner schools.Activities were: Creating a project homepage, immigration and emigration in our countries. Preparing a presentation of the work with migrants within schools and society, preparing presentations on culture in the partner countries, compiling curriculum vitae for migrants, visiting companies, handicrafts and cooking.Our students were encouraged to integrate with pupils of migrant backgrounds and to help one another.Our secondary school pupils from Realschule (not so much Hauptschule) even with migrant background, were able to work with grammar school pupils from partner schools.This project enabled us to educate most pupils to become cosmopolitan people and many students had the opportunity of visiting our partner schools.Our aim was to prepare our students for living and working in a Europe that is well aware of its global responsibility. This European dimension characterized our project and our schools.