LELU (Leppävaara Upper Secondary School ) towards international and open learning environment Background of project Finnish upper secondary school teachers will meet many challenges in the future such as the electronic matriculation examination and e-studybooks . Courses to prepare immigrant students for upper secondary school studies are to start at our school next autumn. Already, there are quite many students from multicultural families studying at Leppävaara Upper Secondary School. The objectives of the project are to promote the development of our school into student- orientated community, to encourage teachers to participate in international training courses and network with European teachers. Training will also enable teachers to improve their language skills and to find innovative teaching practices and new e-learning tools. There are four members of school staff participating in this project: Principal Ismo Kjäldman, Assistant Principal Sari Rinta-Säntti, Psychology teacher Helena Haranen and French and English teacher Kirsi Reiman-Hammarén. As there is a special focus on sports at our school, the Principal is willing to participate in “Education and sport- the education of sport” course in Italy in April 2016. The course offers the opportunity to network with European principals and teachers and to promote intercultural communication especially among students who participate in international competitions. The Assistant Principal is going to participate in “Open Discovery Space” Summer Academy 2015 in Greece. The aim of the course is to give tools to promote innovation at school and strengthen organizational and administrative skills. The psychology teacher will attend the ATP (Association for the Teaching of Psychology) conference in Lancaster in June. The conference will include presentations and workshops on teaching and learning. The French teacher is looking forward to find new methods how to use ICT in teaching and to update her knowledge on French society. After having filled the application form together, the participants will take care of the enrollment and other preparations for their courses individually. As the result of this project all the participants will improve their language skills, network with European teachers, have new ideas for activities in the classroom and for promoting the development of our school towards student-orientated learning. During next autumn term the members of the project will share good practice at “pedagogical cafes” at school. They will also carry on with the project in their teams. The long term benefits will be creating more international and open learning environment at our school. One aim of this project is to encourage all the teachers to continue developing our school in the fields of intercultural cooperation and new information technologies.