This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

The two participating countries

    INSTITUT DE FLIX

INS Flix is located in a village with the same name with 3500 inhabitants in the province of Tarragona. The population has decreased in the last few years due to the decline in the chemical industry which the economy is mainly based on. Our school offers compulsory secondary education, non compulsory upper-secondary education and vocational studies in the braches of electricity and mechanics to students coming from Flix and other five smaller villages. Our school is in an industrial area which is trying to adapt to a new era after the chemical industry is coming to an end. Jobs in the chemical and tourist industry (the natural resources brought by the river are being explored) are the main source of income for most families. In INS Flix there are about 400 students. 42 teachers are in charge of providing them with both the general knowledge and the basic skills for life which will enable them to become independent, committed and participative citizens. Our educational project gives a great importance to foreign languages, providing students in the compulsory stage (1st to 4th ESO) with an extra curricular period of English. Holding the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE) is part of our school´s strategy for modernisation and internationalisation. Moreover, in front of the difficulty of finding a job in the area around Flix, we have laid emphasis on the entrepreneurial spirit of our students. It is three school years now that we started a project whose aim was to train our students in the planning and start up of a small business. To complement all that, and because we are a school which offers vocational studies and training in the main industries, we provide students with the right skills to cope with in the labour market either working for others (being the employees) or for themselves running a business which might create job positions for others. The school has a strong team of teachers interested in working on international projects. Improving our teaching methodology experiencing with team work and problem-based work on a European scale and making use of the latest ICT tools (especially those having to do with marketing, digital literacy and software use) applied to the teaching-learning process is at the core of this project. The group of teachers which will be involved in the project is made up by an expert in economy (market research, writing your business plan, choosing a legal form, financing needs, marketing, etc), a teacher in new technologies (web creation, social networking, etc) a teacher of English, and an art teacher to deal with merchandising and packaging issues. All the team members have a permanent position in the school. INS Flix learning-by-doing methodology has proved successful in teaching creativity and entrepreneurial skills. Students learn to set up and run a "real" business which produces traditional handmade soap. Sharing this hands-on methodology at a European level is what brings us to this project.

TøMMERUP FRI- OG EFTERSKOLE

Toemmerup Fri- og Efterskole is a private school in the Danish countryside in the surroundings of Kalundborg, Zealand. The school has two divisions: a boarding school division (Efterskole) and a division for 160 local students aged 6 – 16. The fundamental values for Toemmerup Fri- og Efterskole are: community, solidarity, creativity and cooperation. The school is located in the small village, Toemmerup, where most of the students live. The nearby town Kalundborg, contains several big companies, but the area is also characterized by a lot of smaller businesses within trade, crafts and farming. For the last six years, Toemmerup Fri- og Efterskole has focused internationalization.
The local school division has been coordinating a Comenius Project in 2013-15, and the boarding school division has participated in several Nordplus Projects. Several teachers have been attending professional training to facilitate the internationalization strategy of the school. Teachers have been to Malta on eTwinning-training, in Estonia to a contact seminar and in Poland in 2016 to a seminar on how to improve activities during students' mobilities. The school also has experience with eTwinning projects. Recently the school board has decided to develop a new teaching/learning practice, an innovative approach letting the students work more project oriented with real life problems on an experimental basis. The objective is to develop students with an innovative and more practical approach to real life problems. The school already has focus on learning by doing in connection to natural science dealing with real world topics in a theoretical and academic way. Toemmerup Fri- og Efterskole would like to work problem based also in a more direct and practical way closer to real life to reach students who sometimes get tired of academic school life, with the result that some of them end up as early school leavers. The motivation to join this project is rooted in the two focus areas of the school: to continue the internalization of the school and to develop the innovative approach to project and problem-based learning. The group to participate in the project is: 23 local secondary school students (aged 13-16), who have never been in an international project before. Coming from a very small community, it would give new international insights and friendships to meet and work together with students and teachers from another European culture. It would clearly enrich the students on a personal level and prepare them for a globalized labor market. Also, teachers will benefit from new insights from European colleagues, both at a professional and a personal level. The school has experience with ICT, and a lot of the students are used to working together using the Internet. Toemmerup Fri- og Efterskole as an institution would like to gain new insights on teaching methods by INX Flix, especially the "hands-on" methodology and gain a partner for corporation in the future.