Instituut Spijker is a school for general education that aims at preparing its pupils for higher education, but also for their life as future (European) citizens. Hereby, we think it is important for them to have an open view on the world around them. We expect that from our pupils, but also from our teachers and management staff. Starting from that philosophy, we created a focus group for internationalization. With this group, our goal is on the one hand to explore the possibilities and value of European and international cooperation, and on the other hand to look for ways to incorporate Europe and its languages and cultures in our school. We are convinced that international contacts as well as student, teacher and management mobility can help the school to reach its goals in terms of quality reform, professionalization of the team and student motivation. As a school, we want to learn from well executed and successful examples in practice, both nationally and internationally, and international cooperation projects will certainly contribute to this. Apart from a few careful steps with some small-scale eTwinning projects, our school’s international experience is rather limited. On short term, we would like to expand our knowledge and skills on this subject by developing an international network. Thus, we hope to engage in valuable long term cooperation projects, which can help to support and strengthen the project of our school. Next year, we would like to attend two international courses to realize our goals. With the first course, ‘Project management for cross-cultural exchange projects in Europe’ in Portugal, we would like to extend our knowledge about international projects as well as to get in touch with other European schools. With the second course, ‘Finnish lessons for European schools’ in Joensuu, Finland, we would like to learn from the widely praised Finnish educational system in the areas of quality, didactic and learning results. Both courses are organized by organizations which have years of experience in international educational courses. Two members of our internationalization focus group will participate in the course in Portugal. Both are teachers at our school. To begin with, they will share their knowledge with the focus group, and after that also with the management team and other colleagues. Next, we would like to use our competences to develop cooperation projects. The session in Finland is mainly focused on school leaders and will therefore be attended by our principal. She will firstly share the insights and competences she gained with the management team, and after that with the rest of the staff. These insights will then be applied in the school policy. The course in Portugal offers a varied program with informative sessions about international projects, as well as workshops in which we will study cases and develop projects. Apart from that, there will also be team building activities that ensure the possibility to network. The Finland course offers a diverse program as well: general information, visits to Finnish schools, demonstration of ICT innovation in education and discussions with Finnish teachers and school leaders. After both courses, there will be an evaluation and we will have access to an online platform. The courses alternate different methods: plenary sessions, examples in practice, small group discussions, role play, interactive sessions and workshops. We expect a big impact of the courses on the participants, the school and the students. Firstly, the members of the international focus group will extend their knowledge on European projects and they will get in touch with European partners. Secondly, all the other teachers will get acquainted with these possibilities to critically evaluate and improve their class practice. Thirdly, we see great advantages for our students: on the one hand they will benefit from a professional and innovative teaching staff and on the other hand the international contacts with other pupils will enhance their motivation and well-being. With the Finnish course, we hope to learn from successful examples in practice of the Finnish system. The principal will discuss the acquired insights and skills with the management team and will apply the relevant aspects in the school policy. Later on, our teachers will put these ideas into practice into their own classes. As a consequence, the educational quality will advance, which will also benefit our students. In the long term, we hope to continually modernize and enhance our teaching methods with this and future projects, as well as to keep both our staff and our students motivated with the help of international projects. Thus, we want to create a school in which quality education and the well-being of all students go hand in hand.