BEAT- Become a European Teacher – is a long term project at the Thomas-Eßer-Berufskolleg The development of our school and our teaching is in accordance with the guidelines and goals the school has developed together with representatives from students, parents, teachers and school social workers (see www.teb-eu.eu). Along with our guidelines, goals and quality standards regarding all aspects of school life and education including individual coaching, teaching and internal and public relations, we have also formulated goals and quality standards for a European orientation of our school. Our motto here is: “We broaden horizons and open up new routes from Euskirchen to Europe”. This commits us to preparing our pupils for life and work anywhere within the European Union. To enable us to do this, one essential quality standard is the participation of our teaching staff in training courses to further develop their skills. As part of the further vocational training course on data security, teachers acquire knowledge and skills regarding the critically-reflected application of IT and new media, taking into account aspects of data security. On the course a wide variety of aspects are dealt with. These include: - legal aspects - the didactic-methodical embedding of IT in lessons - new forms of IT (mobile devices, social networks etc.). Our teaching staff will broaden their methodological knowledge of how to integrate issues of data security into lessons and learn about the influences of new media in and for schools. The vocational training course on "Media Competencies for Teachers" will enable our teaching staff to use new forms of media responsibly and critically. Media skills as a cultural technique and key skill in a knowledge-based society are rapidly gaining importance. Students that are not adept in the use of new media run the risk of losing touch with the skills required in a rapidly advancing and developing working and social environment. Due to the fact that in Germany the IT skills of students are strongly dependant on their social background and origin (see ICILS study, Nov. 2014), it is a matter of course for the Thomas-Eßer-Berufskolleg to enable students to acquire IT and media skills to enable them to succeed in their chosen careers- regardless of their social background. The participation and schooling of the teaching staff on new media vocational training courses is a fundamental and essential requirement to enable the teaching of these IT and media skills to pupils in a pedagogically sound way. The teaching staff have to prepare students for future challenges they will face. The students have to be equipped with the required set of skills to enable life-long learning in IT and media. To do so you have to take into consideration questions like: What forms of media will be used by the students in future? How can these forms of media be implemented in learning (alone or in groups)? How can forms of media be utilised in class to initiate learning processes, to accompany learning and to capture and reflect on results of learning processes? The participants also acquire an important intercultural insight and improve their European understanding of education and the exchange of information under consideration of open learning resources. Thus this project BEAT - Become a European Teacher – and the experiences gained from it will lead to great improvements in teaching for staff and students alike (through a didactically useful application of IT- and communication technologies), combined with a heightened sensitivity for aspects of data security and an increase in media skills.