The Placements for Environmental and Traditional Skills project (PETS) brought together a consortium of UK VET colleges providing vocational training in environmental skills and traditional skills and crafts. The project offered vocational students in these subjects inspiring and educational 4-week work placements with our experienced European host partners. The project also offered VET tutors the opportunity to undertake 7-day staff training visits to European host partners, to learn from their training methods, share experience and form lasting mutually benefical partnerships. This PETS project development and management benefited from over 10 years of Grampus promoting environmental and traditional skills and craft placements through the Leonardo da Vinci programme. This application and consortium combines the experience of delivering two certified IVT projects ‘Training in Contemporary Applications of Traditional European Crafts’ (TICATEC) and ‘Developing Environmental Skills In Rural Europe’ (DESIRE) within the Lifelong Learning Programme. (mobility certificate UK/09/LLP-LdV/MC/Z007) Host countries represented in the consortium are Czech Republic, Slovakia, Cyprus, Germany, Norway, Romania, Iceland, Slovenia ,Bulgaria, Ireland and Turkey.Participant students and recent graduates have developed a higher degree of self confidence, put theory into practice, gained new skills and improved existing skills and competences. The placement experience has inspired a renewed interest in their chosen subjects, allowing them to gain new language skills and complete a CV enhancing placement which will improve employment prospects and/or enable an informed progression to higher level study.Participating staff have benefitted by placing their own training delivery within a wider European context. Travelling tutors have not only explored new skills, methods, approaches and techniques but have also shared their own experiences with host organisations. This experience has given staff access to new ideas and approaches to training which will have a positive impact on their own training delivery. This will ultimately benefit vocational students of the tutor and enable the tutor to pass on new skills and information with a broader European scope.The objectives of the project were to: 1 Provide a period of ‘real work’ experience for beneficiaries studying environmental and craft courses in the UK at VET level. 2. To ensure that this period of European experience is of relevance to the participant’s course of study and can be accredited as such. 3. To increase the appreciation in beneficiaries of the benefits of European cooperation and the fact that we are facing similar challenges across Europe. 4. To provide beneficiaries with sufficient time and support to increase competencies in key environmental and craft skills being used on the placement. These included:Environmental Skills: planting, coppicing, footpath design and construction, countryside furniture construction (bridges, steps benches etc), biodiversity assessments and species identification, basic surveying, habitat management, organic sustainable food production.Craft Skills: weaving, embroidery, silversmithing, blacksmithing, ceramics, wood carving, green wood construction, traditional building techniques (natural materials), 5. To develop a sustainable European VET partnership (hosts, UK colleges and Grampus) which can share experience and develop future cooperation projects. 6. To increase the employment prospects of participating students through gaining real-work experience and laying the foundation for language skills 7. To enhance UK VET training provision in environmental and traditional skills by providing 7-day staff placements for tutors with relevant European hosts.The project management methodology for the PETS consortium has been consistent with the 2001 Recommendation on mobility for students, persons undergoing training, volunteers, teachers and trainers and the ten principles set out in in the European Quality Charter for Mobility.All participant mobilities have been recognised through the Europass certificate. Host partners have provided a minimum of four language lessons with professional tuition to all of our VET participants. All staff mobilities have been recognised within an agreed CPD plan with their own organisations. Host partners have also provided certification and a record of achievement in their own format as additional evidence of achievement.Detailed learning agreements were drawn up prior to placement through discussion between participants, hosts and UK colleges. These provided a realistic benchmark against which the success of the project and placements has been evaluated.

"After three successful mobility projects under the Leonardo da Vinci program in 2009, 2011 and 2013, Green Academy Aarhus has achieved high standards in its work with student mobility. Among other things it has expressed itself in the design of a genuine international strategy. The present project, ""Time4travelling"", has the dual purpose of maintaining the current level of student mobility and contributing to the continued capacity building and quality improvement when it comes to internationalization in general and student mobility in particular. Further, our work on capacity building should be seen in light of the VET reform (to be implemented in the summer of 2015) that challenges several of the established routines in the work with student mobility.The project is 2-year running and it aims at the deployment of 30 students of the new specialized Basic Course 2 to 4 partner countries: the Netherlands, England, Finland and Iceland. Students are equally divided between the sexes and are age-wise between 17 and 24 years old. In terms of future profession, the participants will have rather different educational objectives: future farmers, agricultural machine operators, animal keepers, gardeners, landscapers, forestry and nature conservationists.Each placement lasts for 3 weeks and should contribute to the student’s professional and personal development. Content-wise, there will be practical assignments mirroring the student’s professional competences in terms of knowledge, skills, responsibility and maturity.The project implements the ECVET procedure and related tools in full: i.e. Memorandum of Understanding, Learning Agreement, Assessment, Validation and Recognition. Europasses are issued to students after the completion of their stays abroad.Via his/her contact teacher each student is involved directly in the formulation of learning objectives as well as in the practical organization of his/her own stay. The administrative responsibility for the project lies in the school's international project department. At project level, the responsibility for implementation and evaluation is with the Green Academy Internationalization Group.We expect that the project will benefit the school’s efforts to increase the quality of work with regards to student mobility. We also expect that it will contribute significantly to the continuing implementation and development of the school’s strategy for internationalization."

"After several successful mobility projects under the Leonardo da Vinci program in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015 and later Erasmus + Green Academy (JU) has achieved a high standard of work with student mobility, which is expressed in Green Academys international strategy. This project, ""Travel2Learn"" is as in previous projects designed to maintain the current level of and quality of student mobility as well to contribute to the continued capacity building and quality when it comes to internationalization in general and student mobility in particular. Work on capacity building should also be considered in light of the vocational training reform that challenges several of the established routines in the work of student mobility. The project is two-year running and aims to send abroad a total of 30 students of the new basic course two to five partner countries: Sweden, Holland, England, Finland and Iceland. Students are equally divided between the sexes and are in age between 17 and 24 years. In terms of future professions, the participants will have fairly different goals: future farmers, agricultural machine operators, animal keepers, gardeners, landscapers and forest and nature. Each placement will last 3 weeks and will contribute to both students' academic and personal development. Regarding content, there will be practical assignments mirroring the students professional competences in terms of knowledge, skills, responsibility and maturity. The implement of ECVET procedure and the associated tools are fully implemented: Memorandum of Understanding, Learning Agreement, Assessment, Validation and Recognition. Europass will be issued to students after completion of their stay abroad. In this application, there is a special focus on improving the descriptions of ""Learning Outcomes"" in the ""Learning Agreement"", so they better reflect reality and are useful for internship and the student / learner. Via the students contact teacher the student is involved in formulating the learning objectives and in the practical organization of his/her own residence. The administrative responsibility for the project lies in the school's international project department. At the project level the responsibility for implementation and evaluation is with the Green Academy Internationalizations Group. We expect that the project will benefit the educational institution's efforts to increase the quality of work with student mobility as well to contribute positively to the continued implementation and development of the educational institution's internationalization strategy."

The aim of the project was to develop the vocational-teaching activity of the Agricultural Vocational Centre of Central-Hungary in a way when every stakeholder’s needs are satisfied and the participants get international experience, knowledge and skills.The school, focusing on its professional profile, developed the professional competences of the students and staff in the field of food-industry and agriculture what raised the quality of the education.Continuing the international strategy from last years an important purpose of the project was still the development of the general vocational methods, to involve the methodological elements, required by the challanges in the modern age, in the pedagological culture of the school. During the mobilities the participating collegues got to know the pedagological practices and vocational training methods which could be used in every field and level. One of our most important aim was to collect positive examples for the work of dual-system VET, observe the different implementation techniques in different institutions and also got to know the way and methods, best practices of dealing with a multicultural and colourful community in the school, handling the conflicts inside the VET schools comming from these differences between students. We have chosen the destination countries based on their added value for our pedagological aims. The student's activities were developed to support every professional field of our school, and to provide the best technological way of production with the most respectful traditions. This made our students to achieve high standard levels during their professional mobilities and it helped them to keep motivation also on a different level during their study period. Through better motivation they could develop their own personal, social and professional competences and they are able to adapt to the life of work and life long learning. This year we identified all the learning outcomes of the different mobilites, what kind of skills and competences can a student achieve during a mobilty period. In the same time we identified those skills what the teachers can develop during a mobility program, and the effects of the implementation. The ECVET method is the biggest development from last year and we mesured not just the formal, but the informal and the non-formal learning outcomes in same time. This gave a bigger role to the accompanying teachers and also for thoose who validated the different units in the national education system.We agreed with all partners in the learning units and before the program we made the learning agreements with the knowledge and skills elements.

The project was focused on the secondary school and college students and the teachers who teach special subjects in English. The training abroad represents continuation and extension of a special practical education which forms an integral part of the studies. Our school places an emphasis on the quality of practical training and teaching of foreign languages including special terminology related to the branch of studies. We also teach several chosen subjects in English, which is not common in comparable secondary schools and colleges within the Czech Rep. To improve the quality of practical training we decided to implement the principles of ECVET into all processes. We carefully selected the participants with the best study achievements, who were most interested in the branch of studies and had good language skills. There were 11 participants from the secondary school and 8 college students, from the third grade of the secondary school we chosen pupils of Veterinary Nursing, Agricultural Enterprising, Horticulture and Natural Science Lycée. These pupils performed their 30-day practice in the UK, Norway, Denmark and Sweden.The pupils were placed on family farms focused on dairy cattle breeding, a family farm focused on dairy cattle and crop production, on a veterinary clinic and a partner school farm. 8 college students, studying the second grade of Agricultural Enterprising, performed their 20-week practice in Great Britain, Norway, and Austria. The students were placed on a horse farm and in a horticultural firm focused on organic plant production, on family dairy farms and in a winery and family farms focused on beef cattle breeding and fodder crop production. The placement of the trainees was undertaken by the coordinators from our partner schools. The receiving organizations were carefully selected according to the branch of studies, and the trainees´ interests. Most of them have been collaborating with us for a long time. Before the practical training started Learning Units had been defined for each receiving organization and Memorandum of understanding had been signed. The tutors and mentors of the trainees were persons with a long term experience. The participants were regularly monitored by the coordinator from the partner school and also from the sending organization. The quality of the practical training, keeping the terms, and performance of the training aims were checked. The inspections in receiving organizations in the UK and in Austria were carried out by the sending organization. No failings were found out. The aim of the training was to practise and strengthen knowledge obtained during school studies, to get new special skills, to meet new alternative methods in organic farming, to know economic environment in the country, to learn some information dealing with subsidies and quotas, market policy, regulations in the area of fertilizing and integrated plant protection management, veterinary hygiene and prevention, to acquire new special agricultural terminology and improve foreign language skills, and to get to know the socio–cultural environment of the country. The mentors were responsible for evaluation of the outcomes of learning units. They fulfilled the evaluation forms prepared before practical trainings. The validation and confirmation of learning outcomes was made on the basis of these evaluation forms. The validation was also made on the ground of the diary of the training presented by each participant and the descriptions of their practice in the form of P Point presentation. The trainees will obtain the Mobility Europass. Two 13-day trainee-ships of our teachers were carried out at our partner agricultural school in the UK. The teachers participated on special subjects and practical training lessons; they learnt new teaching methods, innovative technologies and met some of up-to-date teaching aids. By means of using the school resource centre and the library they elaborated new teaching materials focused on teaching special subjects in English. The teachers enriched their special and language skills and competences. After finishing the trainee-ship they arranged several seminars in our school and shared acquired knowledge and materials with other teachers. The impact on the participants was positively evaluated. The participants had possibility to check out variety of theoretical knowledge, and strengthen their practical skills and experience obtained during their studies. They improved their general and special English knowledge. They also met a different sociocultural setting, learnt responsibility and independence. They got better position in the labour market in our republic, increased their competitiveness and willingness to work in EU. The teachers of special subjects obtained their own experience from real English lessons, met new methodology, and improved their special and language competences. They will be able to enrich their lessons with new aspects and methods.