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the Big European Experience
Start date: Jun 1, 2016, End date: May 31, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

We want to do an application with our school, VISO Roeselare, for this project because we find it very important to give our students the opportunity to have an international workplacement experience. We are a secondary school with specialisations in social courses: f.e. haircare, healthcare, elderly care, kindergarten, beauty care... . We developed this project out off previous contacts with foreign partners. 40 students are able to go abroad for workplacements in Finland, France, Sweden and the Netherlands. The students will stay 3 weeks abroad and they will also be prepared during several weeks. During this preparation period, participants will get language courses by teachers of the partner schools. The students also get courses to handle stress situations, conflicts and budgetary issues. The purpose of this project is to improve several skills of the students: communication in another language, teamwork with other students and workplacements, organisational skills. They learn to handle their budget in a consequent way. After the workplacement period, we expect the participants to be more European citizens. Not only the social skills are important, but also the knowledge of their speciality is very important. They see the practise abroad in a elderly home, a kindergarten, a hairdresser or a beauty centre. They learn to compare what they see with what they learned in Belgium and to be critical in this comparison. We have accompanying teachers because the students live in a house without family. The accompanying teacher therefore is the first contactperson abroad. There's an evaluation of the students by the contactpersons in the workplacment. Therefore we made an evaluation document with the foreign partners and we translated it in French and English. After the workplacement period students give a presentation to other students of the school to tell them the most important experiences. They look criticaly at what they learned, what was the most interesting and where the project has to improve. These experiences are also very important for the workplacements in Belgium. The participants visit them and explain new practises that can be used. We also communicate about the project in our schooldiary. That's an important way to reach parents, workplacements and local interested people to carry out the result. The accompanying teacher bring their expericence back to the school. They explain what they have learned during meetings with all the teachers, during meetings with teachers of the same section or during a 'market of professionalisation'. We try to contact te press too, f.e. when the foreign teachers come to Belgium for the preparation of our students. We expect that the project will have a clear impact on our participants. The impact on our school is also very important. International experiences are mentioned in the vision of our school and it's a priority for us. On short term the experience has a positive effect on the participants themselves and on their collegues of the school. It's fantastic to see how enthousiastic they are when they come back. They became real Europeans. On long terms we see that international experiences are a way to avoad that student quit school early. The are looking forward to a workplacement abroad because they heared how nice is it from earlier participants. International experiences only have advantages for our school and that's why we find it soo important to give our students this opportinity.
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