Because mathematics is usually communicated in universally understood symbols it may appear that it does not require a lot of language to understand it but, in fact, its reasoning processes are very dependent on vocabulary and syntax. You may be able to write mathematics in symbols, but you need words and grammar to speak sums and equations, read about them and understand them when you hear them. When students do mathematics in a foreign language, the language itself adds a layer of difficulty to something that is already abstract and opaque. The result, as research shows, is that many secondary and tertiary level students, though they may be good at maths in their own languages, perform at below their level of ability when doing it in a foreign language. Conference attendees, academics and policy makers have asserted that the language of mathematics requires special attention and that there are very few resources available for teaching it.This was the background to the Mathspeak project. We set as our primary aim, the production of a language learning resource for secondary school students living in foreign European countries where they were not native speakers. Mathspeak would supplement foreign language learning by focussing exclusively on the language of mathematics. It would develop users’ receptive skills to the point that language problems ceased to obstruct their understanding of mathematics and enable them to verbally express mathematical concepts, appropriate to their age groups, put number problems into words and handle mathematical terminology with confidence. We put together a team which mixed educational practitioners with the creators of educational materials. The idea was that schools in various European countries would supply teachers and students to pilot the material whose feedback would influence the content and style of the course material.There is a well-known, though by no means universal, resistance to mathematics, especially amongst young people. So, in order to address this resistance, catch and maintain students’ interest in the language of mathematics, the writers took advantage of the current popularity of graphic novels and used comic strips to put over the teaching points. They took the form of light-hearted sketches peppered with fantasy and humour. The material was written one mathematical-themed unit at a time. Each unit was made available to the Mathspeak project partners through the AdminProject portal. The units were in three forms: 1. The finished English version comic strips, 2 A set of comic strips with no text (the blanks), 3. A document with text only for translation. When the translation was complete it would be transferred to the blanks by the IT experts at Danmar Computers. Partners were supplied with tests for the purpose of getting objective data about whether or not students were learning from the course. Most of the partners also used the original English version for the purposes of teaching English as a foreign language. They fed back assessments of the materials which informed further writing.Unfortunately, the Coronavirus pandemic intervened. In the middle of the project, schools closed. Though the Mathspeak project was temporarily suspended, our plans for piloting were seriously disrupted. Even when work restarted, our partner schools remained closed. Some partners were able to continue piloting in a limited way by incorporating Mathspeak into their online teaching. Other partners did not have this facility available. However, the writing and translating continued and the material was completed. 32 students participated in the piloting process, which was not an unsatisfactory number in the circumstancesAs schools have slowly returned to comparative normality, teachers have begun to use Mathspeak and, as we had hoped, news of it is spreading to other institutions. We are continuing to promote it and thereby bring it and the educational issues surrounding it to the notice of policy makers and syllabus designers.

Youth unemployment is an European problem, where 5.2 millions of teenagers make their first decisions wtih an impact on their future life. Most of them regard education as not useful at all as leading them to quit studying and abandon school. Those two issues will be the leitmotifs to be understood and respected. In this context, school should have an important role in developing non formal and informal learning giving expression to multiculturalist attitudes and the construction of personal fulfillment. To help teens make wise and fruitful decisions concerning their lives, we would like to involve students from our schools into the pan-European project called “Empower students with entrepreneurial skills ”. This project emphasises the build of ‘skills for the 21st century’, develop transversal skills such as entrepreneurship and highlights ‘the ability to think critically, take initiative, problem solving and work collaboratively’. These ‘entrepreneurial skills’ should be given particular attention, since they not only help to achieve concrete entrepreneurial activity, but also enhance the employability of young people in each partner´s country and in any European country. The priorities addressed by our project are: (i) Promoting the take-up of practical entrepreneurial experiences in education, training and youth work and (ii) Improving the attainment of young people, particularly those at risk of early school leaving which will be developed by seven schools in seven diverse countries – Portugal, France, England, Italy, Romania, Poland and Finland – whose learning and teaching profiles are different. So we defined four main key-Competences: (i) Raising awareness of cultural and geographical heritage of our regions; (ii) Getting to know the products´ features related to each region’s natural environment; (iii) Becoming acquainted with the local range of industrial, commercial and handicraft associations; (iv) Developing ‘the ability to think critically, take initiative, problem solving and work collaboratively’ through creative entrepreneurship workshops. We believe that the most relevant topics our project deal with are the following: 1) Entrepreneurial learning - entrepreneurship education, 2) Creativity and culture and 3) ICT - new technologies - digital competences. To achieve them we established a mix methodology to develop this project Action-Research. This framework allows us to carry out the project into three action-cycles. Each cycle is strictly related to the going up of the project in the beginning of each new year. Thus we decided to have three transnational project meetings, attended only by school coordinators. To measure the quality of the project we will use different tools to collect data such as questionnaires, surveys and focus group targeted to students, parents, teachers and local community. The main results expected are: (i) Exhibitions of students works concerning to the past and present of their regions for different economic sectors and creativity and entrepreneurship; (ii) Reports on the attitude of students to entrepreneurial activities, the importance of formal education and their needs; (iii) Films, publicity spots, presentations, models, photo albums and posters on the perspectives and news ideas of students in relation to regional development of products or particular economic sectors in their region; (iv) Website for other schools from our areas giving them information on how they can implement similar activities in their schools; (v) Form a group of students and teachers to present/share their knowledge in regional and national schools. As far as dissemination of the project the target groups will be students from different European schools, parents and community since being an entrepreneur in education also involves knowledge and share of good practices at national and international level. School websites, school papers, bulletin boards, exhibitions in school halls, libraries and others areas; Facebook, Etwinning and blogs, will be the internal and external privileged channels used to disseminate the project outcomes, whose the responsible for this phase of the project are the coordinators of each school partner. At the end of the project we look forward to fostering the impact on key-Competences gained by:1. students – independence, discipline, creativity, tolerance and team work skills, creativity and entrepreneurship; Language development and ICT literacy; 2. teachers – language and ICT improvements, team work and problem solving techniques; 3. community – improving cooperation with students’ parents, local authorities and other institutions and enhancing school prestige and popularity;4. school partners – cooperation, experience, motivation and opportunity to exchange professional experience and good practices.

The project traveled 44 pupils at the school at seventeen mobility to 6 partner schools. We sent one student to another long-term placement in partner schools. In this school he graduated from the school management job shadowing. The structure of pupils and teachers were as follows:Slovakia, the United School Detva:7 mechanic fitterGermany, Jena IB:2 mechanics equipment 3 machine mechanics, tool-2Germany, Jena UAG:Adjusting mechanics 2, 3 machinist, tool-2France lycée Ampère Vendôme:5 operators timber and furniture manufacturing, 3 carpentersSpain, Centro Integrado de Formación Profesional Virgen de Gracia Puertollano:8 mechanic fitterSpain, Centro Integrado de Formación Profesional Someso A Coruña:1 student field machinery and equipment mechanic, headmaster and his deputyItaly, Istituto Superiore E. Mattei Fiorenzuola d'Arda:6 mechanic fitter, one mechanic machineryUnits of learning outcomes based on our school curricula and the National Qualifications Framework. Created in cooperation with partner organizations. Students perform the following units of learning outcomes:Machinery and equipment mechanic:Measurement and inspection of linear dimensions, geometric shapes, relative positions of elements and the surface quality (66 hours)Orientation in technical standards and technical documentation (20 days)Setup and operation of the product by the user (21 days)Checking and performing functional testing of machines, equipment and production lines (21 days)Mechanic fitter:Measurement and inspection of dimensions, geometric shapes, relative positions of elements and the surface quality (66 hours)Operator of timber and furniture making, carpenter:The choice of materials, processes, tools, machinery and equipment and organization of work (66 hours)Mechanic:Production of simple parts on conventional types of machine tools (66 hours)toolmaker:Selecting the workflow, needed tools, aids and auxiliary materials for carrying out the tool-, cutlery and engraving operations (66 hours)machinistToolholder, semi-finished workpiece, and the alignment of their position on various types of lathes and boring (66 hours)The content of job shadowing for directors was to compare the systems of Spanish and Czech schools and transferring knowledge to run our schools in the areas of:educational programs teaching methodsICT skillsmethods of teaching foreign languagesfluctuations pupilsassessment of pupilsinclusionCooperation with parentsDeputy Director had the following program:material equipment of schoolsacquisition of investmentsschool funding system determining wagesmotivation of employeescooperation with companiesThe project fulfilled our defined objectives. Units of learning outcomes have been duly verified. Students working on analogue machines on which they are accustomed. After the language has been a significant shift especially in the field of terminology. Mutual exchange of technical documentation spread portfolio school. During the project held a two-week internship students Slovak schools, three-month internship at the school in Puertollano, month internship students from the Italian school and a three-week internship students from the French school. Our partners are permanent, certificates created personal ties here.The following project will be analogous, it is long-term assets present 5 courses and 5 teachers embark on job shadowing.

Entitled Cities of the Future, Future Citizens (C2FC), this projects focuses on the city now and the city of tomorrow. In the current world ecological crisis, we will study it through three axes : the sustainable city, the smart city, and the resilient city. Our first objective is for students to become better skilled in the topic itself, but also in languages and ICT, as well as broaden their cultural horizon. We also aim to strengthen their ability to work in groups. Our second objective is to strengthen the students’ motivation while fighting against school dropout. With this project, we are aiming to directly reach about 80 students, especially those who are economically and culturally deprived. We also are targeting a dozen teachers. Each year, students will work on the topic that we have defined : first, they will analyze concepts and think about the topic. Then, they will investigate into their city in order to identify the problems it is currently facing or will soon face given the ecological crisis. Finally, they will think ahead and imagine solutions to the ecological issues faced by the city of the future. Meanwhile, students will also be asked to suggest a civic action at the local level. About 40 pupils will be meeting at the end of each school year. During this meeting, they will first share their achievements. Secondly, they will be working in multinational groups of 4 students – each student being a reprensentative of their country. Each group will have to create a short, instructive video that illustrates of one the issues tackled during the year, as well as the proposed solutions. The methodology will include both classical research and meetings with the city’s key-figures : local politicians, research centre, innovative companies. The project will also be framed and organized by two coordination meetings : one will be held at the beginning of the school year, the other will be held at the end. This project should therefore lead to the production of about 40 formal productions : presentation of research, presentation of civic actions, and production of at least 16 instructive videos made in multicultural groups. The students’ language, ICT and intercultural skills, together with their ability to work in groups should improve. We are expecting a positive impact of the project on the partner schools as it will put them into motion, thereby adding positive value and making them more attractive to the neighbouring schools. The connection between partner schools and neighbouring schools should be strenghtened.Unfortunately, the health crisis and its impact on education greatly impacted the initial project since the second year was largely cut. The extension of the project in the hope of a rapid improvement was only an illusion which only reinforced the disarray.

The problem Industry 4.0 was a hot topic already in 2018 when this project was at the application phase, and it is even more the case today in 2021. The need for robotics and computerization is growing. While this will reduce the number of jobs in assembly and production, a significant number of jobs particularly in IT and data science will be created. However, children have less and less interest in such engineering or technical careers as they believe these subjects are too difficult for them to succeed and not suitable for women. The target groups Main target: STEM teachers Sub target: their students (secondary level) Others: relevant stakeholders, among which career counsellors, educators, trainers, policy makers, representatives of business sector. The solution The DIRECTION 4.0 (D4.0) project has developed a set of didactic materials that will help STEM teachers to introduce and promote the concept of Industry 4.0 among students through a Compendium. A 4.0 Career Roadmap serves as a professional career roadmap, encouraging students to choose more technical fields of study. The project also facilitates the building of a network of teachers through Space 4.0 - toolbox for teachers which contains all deliverables built during the project and helps teachers to meet and share experiences. Main objectives D4.0 aims at promoting the concept of Industry 4.0 and related technologies among secondary school students and encouraging them to choose technical careers. This is achieved by providing teachers with updated didactic materials, researching the 4.0 skills profile and giving the target groups a better understanding of the concept. The partners The partnership comprises 7 partners from 7 countries: a higher education institution focused on training operational engineers, a secondary school, a higher education institution providing courses on robotics, an expert in new technologies related to Industry 4.0, a consulting bureau dedicated to promotion of cutting-edge technological solutions, a consultancy offering services ranging from business development and public funding acquisition to custom implementation, an IT training provider and e-learning solutions developer. Methodology Thorough research has been done by all partners on selected topics of Industry 4.0 in order to prepare the Compendium which gives a good idea of the state of implementation especially in Europe, the economic and social factors, expected trends and challenges. The topics were: Smart Factories, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Cloud Computing, 3D printing, Robotics, Cyber security. For each topic the subjects required for a career in the area have been added (general science, ICT, mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry). An annex was also developed with the methodology to create a workshop. A job market analysis has been conducted next with a field research to determine the Model Skills Set that would be developed. After a skills verification done with students, the 4.0 Career Roadmap report has been prepared. Meanwhile, all deliverables were uploaded in Space 4.0 - toolbox for teachers with the Compendium transformed as e-courses, the Skills verification tool set and pilot testing done to validate all developed content in the project for it to be finalised. Results The outcomes of D4.0 comprise the: - Compendium 4.0 - 4.0 Career Roadmap Report - Skills Verification Tool - Space 4.0 - toolbox for teachers Long-term benefits With the support of the Space 4.0 - toolbox for teachers, a virtual space developed for sustainability of the e-course and deliverables, teachers will be in position to present their students updated content and tools about Industry 4.0 to ensure young people are better aware of what Industry 4.0 is, what kind of skills are needed to work in the fields described, and encourage them to choose technical and engineering careers to be part of Europe’s workforce to build the future. (Even though the course of the project has been affected by the Covid-19 sanitary crisis, partners ensured the high quality of the project, as planned in the application.)