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The Employment Guarantee- A European Challenge!
Start date: Sep 1, 2015, End date: Aug 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The title of our project is: The Employment Guarantee - a European Challenge. This School Partnership involves four schools in Europe from Sweden, Scotland, Germany and The Netherlands. Across Europe schools are focused upon the primary objective of assisting pupils to perform to the best of their ability, irrespective of social background or disability. Our project aims to promote and address issues which affect all school age pupils with a specific focus on improving the oft problematic transition between school and work and allowing the pupils to see, in an international context, how these barriers can be broken down and that by doing so pupils' motivation and likelihood of positive destinations post school will increase. By providing the pupils with the essential key skills such as improved ICT, additional languages and the methodology to heighten their attainment levels, we will furnish them with the tools they need to seize opportunities when they arise. They will also learn how to actively seek out new opportunities by evidencing key companies who recruit young people in each of the participating areas. Specifically, Husqvarna (Sweden), Royal Bank of Scotland (Scotland) OHB (Germany) and Phillips (Holland). The pupils involved in the programme will be aged between 14-19, 10 from each country, and each nation has agreed to hold one international meeting which will involve work shadowing and visits to sites of industry and business. Five businesses and universities in each country will be targeted to the investigation. There will be business mentors in place to fully engage the young people in their learning. We aim to challenge the pupils into looking out with the normal employers in their area and consider a more adventurous approach- looking to Europe for inspiration. The final product of this project will be a regional fair where the participants will display the material such as leaflets and films they have produced when exploring the external partners. This fair will give the participants the possibility to show entrepreneurship and initiative and will ensure a wide spread of their knowledge to other pupils. Web site, eTwinning and School Education Gateway are other means of dissemination used. We also aim to produce a model of sustainability- setting up a framework of employers and businesses who will provide work experience opportunities, in-house training and will act as coaches to our pupils. We will also have a tracker to ensure they are in positive destinations even after they have left school. The project will be launched in September and the, 'official opening event' will be held in Germany in December 2015. Further visits are planned to March 2016 in Sweden, October 2016 in Holland and March 2017 in Scotland. Each school has agreed its role in the project by taking ownership of key areas or strands; Sweden with its strong ICT background will lead Strand 1-ICT. Scotland has a particular interest in, and experience of meeting the needs of the less able which is Strand 2. As Germany has strong project management expertise they will lead strand 3 and as Holland has the greatest percentage of high achieving students, they will share their experience of how to raise attainment-leading in Strand 4. As the aim is to fully utilise the pupil voice, another very important component of our project is to motivate and enthuse young people. There will therefore be considerable emphasis on the pupils themselves leading their learning using active learning approaches. Our partners in business and industry will also play key roles in heightening awareness of the skills necessary to succeed in the world of work thus pinpointing out key factors in the transition between school and work, encouraging further studies to ensure a good basis for employability. We will equip our pupils with Europass. Through these transnational cooperations and visits we will enhance the pupils' linguistic and digital competences but also foster a greater understanding for and response to cultural diversity. This means will be reached through home hosting and social activities among other things. We envisage a more positive attitude towards the participating countries but also towards the EU as a whole which is an important action as we still have xenophobic movements in Europe. The success criteria of the project on completion will be to look at the numbers of students who enter positive destinations after school be it to higher or further education, into training or apprenticeships, or straight into the job market. The result will also be the fulfilment and development of the individual schools' need when it comes to motivational work, expanded use of ICT, contact with third parties to strengthen the education as being connected to reality and the wish to proceed the international collaboration. This goal with the project will ensure the sustainability of the results since it is part of the schools' development plans.
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