International school cooperation a chance for better vocational education

"The partnership cooperation project entitled ""International school cooperation as a chance for better vocational education"" was initiated by the Electric School Complex in Kielce, the project coordinator. The partners in the project were: Colegio Salesiano Santísima Trinidad school from Seville, Spain and CINEL - Centro de Formação Profissional da Industria Eletronica, Energia, Telecomunicações, e Tecnologias de Informação from Lisbon, Portugal. The training company IBD Solutions Limited from Portsmouth, England was also a partner in the project.The project aimed at development of cooperation with the above-mentioned vocational schools in Spain and Portugal, in order to improve the qualifications and skills of project participants, exchange experiences, teaching methods in vocational education, and cooperation in the field of organizing short professional internships for students of partner schools. An important aspect of the project was the development of key competences, such as knowledge of English or IT skills, both among students and teachers. The project assumed several areas of cooperation, the most important of which was the creation of a common online training platform where teachers of vocational subjects shared their experiences in teaching. For this purpose, the MOODLE platform was used, with materials useful for teaching vocational subjects. This platform was initially planned to be used in the project for distance teaching and shared lessons, unfortunately, the pandemic thwarted these plans, as most schools in Europe introduced the need to use distance learning and the TEAMS application during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in less interest in the MOODLE platform and courses posted there. Nevertheless, teachers have received training in using this platform and many still use it.The school partnership was developed in the project through training workshops for apprentices at all partner institutions. There were 6 such visits, two in each project country. During the training workshops, teachers of vocational subjects had the opportunity to observe the lessons conducted by their foreign colleagues, discuss methods used in other countries and train their skills. The next area of ​​activity in the project was the improvement of language skills. They were improved throughout the project, as the language of the project for Poland, Spain and Portugal was English. As only Polish teachers reported the need to improve their language skills, especially in speaking at specialist courses, before the start of the project, two language courses were organized for them, in the first and second year of the project, in Portsmouth, England, at the IBM Partnership institution.Another area of ​​partnership cooperation was the participation of a delegation of students from schools taking part in the project in mobility at partner schools. There were 5 such mobilities. Students took part in lessons of different vocational subjects, conducted in English, as well as in workshop activities and the cultural program. Students posted their impressions and thoughts on the blog (student and teacher zone) of the project page, which was linked to the home pages of the partner schools so that their voice as the most important target group was also visible.Instead of the previously planned training webinar for students, an online electronics lesson using the ZOOM platform was held for students from three countries: Poland, Portugal, and Spain, even before the mandatory introduction of distance learning in these countries.The project was widely publicized in the local community, and its results were disseminated by all partners by all possible means. Information about the project was published on a specially created project website, in local media, on the Internet, on the Erasmus + Program Results Platform, and the home websites of all project partners."