CONTEXT/BACKGROUNDOur schools have experience of working together on previous international projects. All 3 schools strive to provide an outstanding education for all 11-18 year olds, ensuring that students aspire and are challenged to achieve academic success whilst supporting and developing individuals to prepare for the future as global citizens. Gymnasium auf der Karthause has held some successful staff football matches with Meadowhead in recent years which strengthened relationship ties between the schools. The same results can be expected from student-student interaction. Sports is an excellent topic which will enable socially challenged students to participate as they can communicate without requiring too many words in the target language to engage from the outset. Furthermore, the cadre athletes, don't normally take part in the exchanges due to their fear of missing training sessions or having no possibility to do their individual fitness program. By giving them the opportunity to continue doing sports and to broaden the vocabulary necessary for international competitions, we expect uptake from this cohort to rise significantly.This project will allow disadvantaged students to participate in their first trip overseas - the main barrier to participation in overseas visits is prohibitive costs for our families, especially those disadvantaged economically.This project will improve both student and staff language competency through an exciting sports related theme.OBJECTIVE1 : To improve language skills of students aged 13-18, and to encourage uptake of MFL study at Further/Higher Education level.2 : To increase the number of disadvantaged and cadre athlete students participating in exchanges abroad3 : To enrich language teaching and learning, and intercultural education through a new collaborative project focused on European sports.4: To make students aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle NUMBER/PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSWe will take two different cohorts of up to 15 students aged 13-15 per year on reciprocal exchanges visit to Germany and Spain to exchange skills and knowledge based on the theme of popular local sports . Disadvantaged UK/Spanish and German cadre athlete students will be actively encouraged to participate and make up at least 30%. This project will give the cadre athletes the rare opportunity to take part in an international exchange without endangering their fitness level. Sports/language teachers from Germany and Spain will also undertake job shadowing with each other with a view to introducing a new Spanish/German club and setting up future exchange links, between the two schools.ACTIVITIES/METHODOLOGYHost students and staff will teach visiting students and staff about the history, popularity and sporting culture in their schools, towns and nations. Peer-learning will be encouraged since they will teach each other how to play typical sports from their region/country, and the language associated with that sport or leisure activity in the target language. Students will compete against each other in a final sports tournament at the end of the exchange week. Visiting students will also visit local primary schools to offer a presentation about popular sports in their country, to practice their language skills and teach younger pupils about their culture.Students from all schools will prepare videos with the help of the Spanish CPA, photo displays, and Powerpoint presentations about sports and language learnt to support dissemination.EXPECTED RESULTS & IMPACTSince many of the German cadre athletes are working on becoming world-class champions, their new language skills will benefit their professional career. English sports could be integrated into German P.E. lessons. Students will benefit from new language skills and will not drop their bilingual subjects. An increase in CertiLingua applications is to be expected. In the UK and Spain we expect students to improve their attainment in languages and new sports enrichment clubs to be offered. Uptake for the Year 2 exchange - Cohort 2, should be more competitive as the Year 1 participants (now acting as Erasmus ambassadors) will raise the profile of the exchange programme through dissemination of their knowledge and skills to younger peers, thus engaging and persuading them to take part.LONGER TERM BENEFITSStudent participants will act as language ambassadors in subsequent years to raise the profile of language learning and exchange benefits, talking to classes to encourage younger peers to apply for future language exchanges, which will support the sustainability and enrichment of these subjects.We expect GCSE and A-Level uptake of German and Spanish in the UK will increase. In Germany, an uptake of bilingual PE lessons will increase as well as the introduction of new Spanish lessons. Furthermore, an exchange between Spain and Germany will be planned.

Work-related experience for students has become more and more popular and important for any increased future employability. The project has provided post-16 students in Spain/Germany/England with an invaluable insight into the European job market by completing a week-long work placement in a local company or organisation of the host country which will broaden their knowledge and make them aware of the importance of knowing about other European countries in order to gain confidence in themselves, open their minds to employability possibilities abroad. Moreover, it has also increased their linguistic skills, which will benefit them in their exams and encourage the study of languages beyond A -level. The main activities involved: work experience placement in Germany/Spain/England for one week in local businesses, completion of a variety of tasks within each company under the close supervision of a dedicated member of staff, completion of a log book by the students about their experiences each day, meetings with staff in the companies to discuss educational and cultural particularities and differences between the countries, educational and cultural visits to local attractions in the evening and at weekend, monitoring and evaluation meetings during and after the visits. Students also learned about the language at work, the necessary skills to write a CV, European standards related to academic recognition, and the differences among the educational systems of the partners involved. Before the Work Experience all the post 16 students in the participating schools were given the opportunity to acquire language and employability skills as they were taught about how to do research of a foreign company, how to manage in a work experience abroad, etc. as we pretended that the project had an impact in as many students as possible, not only those participating in the trips. Each participant school sent one or two teachers accompanying a group of students to work placement mobilities (two visits per country) and accommodated the students in private housing on an exchange stay basis. This work experience was carried out in 2015 and 2016, thus implying the participation of 57 students in the mobilities. The fact of repeating the work experience had the clear aim of improving the collaboration system with the companies, as well as having the opportunity to compare results and draw conclusions.We can confirm now that the work-experience project has improved students’ linguistic skills, their interpersonal skills and their awareness of the international employment market. During the project, students practiced their CV writing skills in a foreign language, learned research skills investigating about foreign companies, improved their interpersonal skills when communicating with the foreign employers and their host families, and acquired vital working skills in a foreign company. All of this has impacted positively on the students’ exam results and increased their employability expectancies in the future. The long-term benefit can be said to be a successful work-related project between the three partner schools sustained in the future which will impact on the whole-school and local community. The post-16 education in each school has been enhanced and the project has led to a wider appreciation of language learning and employability skills in a global world. As a partnership we have attained a valuable knowledge about how to start a work experience abroad for under 18 students, and we hope it might be a useful tool for other schools in Europe too, who might be willing to accept the challenge and start such a rewarding experience. The school material developed for the didactic units may also proof to be of great value, and it can be improved every time it is used at any school. These lessons are uploaded in the website so that any school interested may have a look and use them, and they are also visible in the European Platform of Results. Its use in lessons for post-16 students is a guarantee of the sustainability and usefulness of the project outputs. The project has also had an impact on the local businesses’ exposure within the wider (European) community they are included in our website as collaborating entities, and they have been named in press articles and social networks (schools’ facebook, newspaper articles) references to the project. We hope to keep the collaboration with our partners and extend the project in the future, starting a new one which may include other countries, partner schools and companies to increase the mobility opportunities for the students.Finally, the name chosen for the project has proved to summarize the whole spirit of the project: Commuting across Europe for Work Experience (CEWE), along with the logo that we chose so that the main idea of the project was seen in just one image, that is, a European star with interconected dots representing our students commuting for work experience.

This project built on our previous successful KA1 work shadowing project for STEM leaders and comprised 2 key objectives: 1. To increase uptake and raise the profile in schools of not only the traditional STEM subjects of Science, Technology and Maths, but also (through involving the 'A' for Arts to add a creative and very visual dynamic to this project) to drive uptake of the Arts, including linguists to increase uptake of English, German and Spanish subjects in all 3 schools. 2. To improve staff and student knowledge and skills required to follow careers in STEAM areas of industry.Number/profile of participants: There were a minimum of 4 STEAM based curriculum leaders in each country, and at least 2 business partners, 2 senior leaders, a University partner and a project manager in each country. We recruited and trained 64 ambassadors (20+ per school) aged 14-18 studying STEAM subjects and planned for each group of 10 to travel to either partner school to carry out collaborative work with the 2 other partner schools. Unfortunately due to Covid19 our final exchange to the UK school was cancelled, causing much disappointment and disruption to the final year of the project for all participants. Activities: Ambassadors in each school developed STEAM subject related skills and knowledge through participation in specialist school and University based workshops, STEAM related trips, business visits and events, and by conducting employer interviews at STEAM related companies to learn more about careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths. Ambassadors shared knowledge throughout the project with partners overseas to learn more about the global STEAM landscape in education and business in each country.Each partner school led specialist workshops during the student exchanges focusing on their strongest associated curriculum area of each school: German school (SCIENCE/MATHS), and Spanish school (TECHNOLOGY and ENGINEERING). The UK school had planned to focus on the ARTS for the final exchange which had to be cancelled. Impact: Short term benefits included improved STEAM knowledge, skills and confidence of participants (staff and students), increased uptake of STEAM subjects in all schools, as well as improved links to University STEAM departments and local STEAM based businesses. The majority of ambassadors have chosen STEAM pathways, partly as a result of their experiences, and have a better idea of the career options open to them in different industries/countries. Longer term - All students on the programme accessed STEAM work experience placements or alternative enrichment opportunities with local employers. Participants are fully trained as ambassadors to inspire future cohorts of potential STEAM ambassadors when they enter their Post 16 education, which will ensure sustainability of the programme in future years in all schools. STEM subjects are enjoying a higher profile in each school and increased uptake at GCSE and A-Level or equivalent qualification in option subjects. Almost 100% of the ambassador participants have chosen to follow a STEAM related pathway into Further/Higher education. Teachers and careers advisors have improved knowledge of STEAM based careers in each locality, as well as secure links to related employers to ensure STEAM related high quality work placements and other future project possibilities for future cohorts.

In order to equip our students with the necessary employability skills to meet the needs of current and future employers, we as education providers must understand these needs and improve our current practice to safeguard and nurture prosperous futures for our teenagers today, regardless of their socio-economic or academic backgrounds.Despite our best efforts, the cohort we often in the UK refer to as Pupil Premium (PP) continues to be the Achilles heel of our institutions as time and time again these students fail to meet the desired and expected levels of progress largely down to the fact they do not believe they can and will achieve academic and employment success. This is partly due to the lack of role models within the family, or complex family situations that apparently limit the aspirations of the individual. The objective of this project is simple; to make it easier for all students to see that success is available to all through quality education and sound careers guidance.We now need to evaluate our own practice and the practice of others across different European nations to examine the way in which we instill ambitions and encourage all individuals to make themselves an active member of a global society, with good career prospects, especially those from a more disadvantaged background. We strongly believe that through working with teenagers in other countries, our most vulnerable students who for some have never left the country will develop a desire to raise their own ambitions and aspirations, and even consider aspiring to work in another European country in their long term career.This project should therefore help students to identify what career pathway they want to pursue, increase their desire and efforts to succeed academically to achieve the best grades possible to get the jobs they really want to pursue in later life. This will help us as a consortium of schools to narrow the gap and improve attainment for the lower academic achievers in all our schools.We will recruit a team of 30 'Employability ambassadors' aged 13-16 in each of the 4 schools who will contribute to the project over the next two years, each of them visiting 1 other partner school to explore similarities and differences between the career education and pathways, employment prospects and employability skills in each country. They will then produce (with support from teachers, mentors and business partners) 4 key intellectual outputs - A guide, website, App, and lesson plans to help raise awareness of the importance of and improve Employability skills of other European teenagers. The expected result will be better job prospects for all users as they develop the skills that employers are looking for on a local, national and perhaps International level. Activities will include: Initial interviews on camera and via attitudinal surveys about careers and employability skills development; develop hypothesis on employability and test this against local employers’ attitudes; devise a menu of employability and aspiration/ambition projects; develop some of these and test, rate and review; select the best and most valuable 3 projects to partners and trade; publish and share via website and App; evaluate wider impact and use reviewing tools to measure/gauge strength of a project though online survey and App quiz; Feedback and disseminate to media and educational groups in all 4 countries; complete and be awarded employability passports at a grand ceremony at the end of the 2 year project. In terms of methodology we will employ the PDR cycle of improvement for each project.Expected outcomes and results will include:All participants to achieve more positive scores re: school reviews e.g. all green on track to achieve best results possible for the individual; All participants to have a clearer aspirational life/career plan; All participants to have a much greater attitudinal scores than the baseline data; All participants able to articulate and demonstrate what employability skills are and how to improve life chances through an international employability passport signed and endorsed by all partner schools.Long term - As part of the study we will look to receive updates and follow up from the participant ambassadors well into their future employment, with a plan to bring them back on an annual basis into school to promote their achievements and the work that helped them to get into employment. We would hope that in the longer term, the resources will be used by a wide variery of schools both on a national and International scale thanks to the shared website/App development and users will improve their employability skills to help them become 'work ready' and achieve their first job or training course beyond age 16.