Educated in Democracy, United by Common Aims, Teaching with Innovation, Opportunities and Non-discrimination

We applied for this project in order to embrace the latest EU initiatives, policies and priorities of inclusion, equity, active participation of youth and respect for diversity as solutions to our most stringent local problems and challenges and rely on international collaboration and the exchange of experience and good practices to improve the situation in both European schools. The needs identified in the two school communities were: a concerning number of students affected by unfavourable circumstances, victims of the pandemic in terms of limitted access to education, digitalisation and equal opportunities, lower self-esteem and motivation levels, the risk of (self)exclusion and marginalization, a lack of opportunities and resources to reach the individual potential of some of our students as well as our institutional aims regarding the processes of europenisation and internationalisation of both schools.

By implementing the Erasmus+ project E.D.U.C.A.T.I.O.N. we wanted to identify and create resources and opportunities to meet the individual and collective needs of our students and to prepare ourselves and our current and future learners for the challenges of a constantly changing environment and that of a more and more competitive global society. In very few words, preparation for the future, for life, was our ultimate goal, especially for the most vulnerable students from our communities. We also intended to achieve some long lasting results and improved behaviours and attitudes for the extended communities, based on the values, priorities and quality standards of the Erasmus+ programme. While capitalizing on our strong points (both schools have tradition/ experience in some educational areas) and finding solutions together to improve our weaknesses, what we wanted to achieve was the ability to address learning disadvantage, social and economic inequities and low levels of self-esteem and motivation with the financial support of the Erasmus+ programme which allowed us to create some of the most meaningful learning/teaching/training experiences, access to EU standards of education, intercultural opportunities for personal growth.

We implemented all the activities planned in the application, even though we needed to adapt some of them as a result of objective, external circumstances beyond our control. During the local activities and the two mobilities we succeeded in organising the following: a STEM workshop which involved the participation of almost the entire school community of Aniche, France, an EDUtainment Gala for Youth, 10 teaching sessions supported by original resources held by the students for school subjects such as English, French, Romanian, History, Geography, ICT etc., a picnic and clean-up day, a research and documentation visit to the North of France, a 2.0 workshop for/with/by the students, a European carreer fair, a collaborative workshop and transdisciplinary poster competition, a roundtable discussion on the topic of equity, a research and documentation visit to the capital city of Frace (instead of Brasov city, Romania), a digital workshop, the planting of 6 evergreen coniferous trees in the Romanian school garden, the setting up of the Erasmus+ E.D.U.C.A.T.I.O.N. Club in the Romanian school, a space of inclusion and equity, the asynchronous virtual mobility on the Wakelet platform, the dissemination activities in both our schools etc.

Increased awareness of the need to address the lack of equal opportunities, increased inclusiveness for a number of 16 Romanian students (instead of the 8 initially planned) and 8 French students, improved skills and knowledge for a number of 400 indirect beneficiaries (the project participants' peers) and approximately 2000 parents, members of the local community, officials, educational authorities and partners, stakeholders etc. and the participants in the dissemination activities that followed the mobilities, a higher level of involvement from the part of the students participating in their own learning and development process as well as increased self-confidence and self-esteem, improved key-skills, competences and better attitudes, together with more visibility and recognition for the two school communities were the main concrete outputs. The tangible products created during the project include a portfolio of original teaching, learning materials and interactive resources designed with digital tools, a round-table discussion, 2 special places- the E.D.U.C.A.T.I.O.N. Club, an inclusive, supportive lab of personalised resources and available guidance and support, set up in the Romanian school and the enriched school garden etc.