Description of the project

Teachers at the applicant school have realised that their students lack many skills and personal compentences for entering working life. Many students do not have a long-term strategy for their professional development. They are very focused on their free-time activities and not consciously seeing the benefits of the full-time education they are in. Many students claim to aim for a higher school leaving certificate but they do not actively work for it. There are students who do not do their homework, show disruptive behaviour in class and are not diligent enough to achieve good marks or the best marks they could. Teachers have observed that in many cases the students do not have the skills and personal competences to reach their goals. Sometimes economical circumstances are not favourable.

The teachers involved in this project would like to develop new ways of tackling these problems in a European perspective. The Greek and Italian school are faced with the consequences of the financial crisis. Moreover they are situated in remote areas. The Romanian school is faced with students who see their future in an academic career but do not realise that you need personal competences to attend university courses where lecturers will focus on special knowledge not on personality. The German school has a very heterogenous group of students who come after having attended different types of secondary schools in order to prepare for an apprenticeship in business or to study. We believe that our different problems and circumstances will enrich our view on the situation of the students and give us the chance to see personal competences from different perspectives.

The schools aim at developing a programme leading to a Certificate of Personal Competences (CPC) that will be implemented in the schools on a long-term basis. Moreover the concept and the steps will be published in an eBook for other insitutions to use for their students. Many school throughout Europe face these problems and we would like to find ways of addressing them and sharing our ideas with other instiutions via the project blog. The project team has taken a conscious decision to focus on pupils who are not achieving their potential - this includes pupils of lower abilties but also gifted students who are hindered by other factors from getting the best marks they could. The teachers of the schools involved will have the chance to think about their students and their pedagogical and teaching methods in a different way. Many teachers only see the knowledge a students has and how s/he uses it in class. This approach will help teachers to see their pupils from a holistic point of view. So teacher will find new ways of working with the pupils thus helping them to inprove their exam results. We believe that this project will facilitate new developments in our schools which would not be possible without the European perspective enriching us with different views on solving the problems we are all faced.

The four partner schools will develop a programme that leads to developing personal competences in the students. Participants will be given the CPC to use for their applications in order to enhance their chances on the labour market. The certificate will focus on 4 aspects which teachers have identified as the most problematic areas: time management, reflecting yourself, lifelong learning and project management. All areas are seen as vital in the European and national discussion on qualifications for young people before they start working life.