<< Objectives >>The project promotes interest in science, technology and green skills through an increase in both the quantity and the quality of STEAM in schools. To ensure that future-oriented, sustainability-based green STEAM becomes an entrenched part of the education landscape to fulfill local economic and societal needs, the project establishes local green STEAM ecosystems in partner regions with the help of regional authorities, education providers, businesses, and other stakeholders.<< Implementation >>The activities fall into three main categories:1. STEAM practice in schools (The What): The development of green STEAM teaching practices, methods, and materials.2. Teacher competence building in STEAM (The How): The development of green STEAM teacher training modules for in- and pre-service training.3. Local STEAM ecosystem building (The Why): The development of local collaboration platforms for schools, regions, businesses and other stakeholders to keep STEAM locally relevant.<< Results >>The project will result in marked expansion of STEAM in participating schools and regions, improved teacher abilities in sustainable STEAM through specific green STEAM training, and a network of four functioning STEAM ecosystems in the Baltic Sea region. It will also produce the Green STEAM Handbook, which will include the best teaching practices developed in the project, a model for green STEAM teacher training, and a guide to entrenching STEAM through local ecosystem building.

"Our project ""Discover Europe from IES Villaverde"" is a two years mobility project whose target group are sixteen students from Intermediate Vocational Training studies who are taking different courses in Health, Welfare and Computer Sector. This project is also focused on improving our teacher`s training, specially those who work in the vocational fields mentioned above. We will be able to carry on five mobility actions for teachers involved in Health and Welfare areas. These activities will include job-shadowing practises and the exchange of new teaching methods and strategies with our partners.The main objectives of the project are:- To reinforce the european dimension of our educational activities.- To strengthen the european citizenship and social cohesion.- To improve job opportunities for our students.- To Improve our students`professional and social skills.- To Improve our teachers`training.- To improve participants`language skills.Thanks to these activities our students will improve not only their job opportunities, but also their language and personal skills. This project is also going to encourage the participants to carry on higher studies and therefore, they will enrich their careers and their professional backgrounds by doing part of the jobtraining period in a foreing company. This fact also will benefit our spanish companies which have the possibility to receive these students once they finish their training period abroad. Once these students come back, companies will have students highly motivated and with a very good professional and personal background. On the other side, our students`moblities will improve our companies percpetion regarding the jobtraining module organitation. Definetively, this project will improve our school reputation especially to our stakeholders.Finally, our teachers will also get a huge benefit of the actions planned in the project. They will be able to enrich their work and teaching methods, and in the meanwhile, the links with our partners and companies will be reinforced thanks to the project. The whole project will help to improve the quality of our educational activities in the areas where our teachers work."

In that project Tallinn Polytechnic School involved two target groups: students (30 days practical training in companies and teachers and school staff members (7 days learning in schools). The aim of the project for the first target group was to arrange for the students the possibility to do a real work abroad. Although we have here in many different areas very good technological environment and modern equipment, we have quite narrow specialization. The reason might be expensive technology, software, equipment. And that does not allow our students to do real working operations in a real working environment, although at school they have done these for example on simulators. Our plan was to send out 52 students, but because of the different circumstances in the hosting countries we sent out 43 students from all of our specialties.13 to Portugal, 1 to Poland, 7 to Finland, 6 to Netherlands, 8 to Hungary, 5 to Latvia, 3 to Spain.Teachers` mobility was necessary, because Tallinn Polytechnic School is on quite many fields the only school in Estonia, so it is very important to compare teaching/learning systems and techniques, curricula and technical equipment with same field European schools. Also we took account Life Long learning strategy aims and principles until 2020, approved by Estonian Government. With this project we would like to motivate our staff and also bring up their competences and also support their efforts to enhance their innovation and creativity in their everyday work. Through these mobilities to partner schools teachers knowledge broaden about the curricula and methodology, used in partner schools; technical equipment. The participants get better feeling of internationalization. We sen out 16 teachers and school staff members. Project was managed by a project team: project manager, finance manager, head of educational department. Project manager coordinated communication between receiving partner and companies: arrange cultural-language preparation activities; made a travel plan and find (with the receiving partner) accommodation. During the mobility period we used the common monitoring system which is based on blogging, Facebook group. These possibilities helped a lot later, when the participant had to make their report. Everyday monitoring the project manager did by e-mail, phoning, Skype, if needed specialty teachers attracted. Analogue system we had effectively used in previous mobility projects too. After the mobility we assumed that students’ motivation to continue successfully their studies has improved, they are venturous and they have entrepreneurship ideas. These young people could be on quite a high position in our labor market, socially more mature and their sense of responsibility has risen. Quite often young people who have been on a mobility abroad have taken into use new technologies which are not used in Estonia yet, but they are very useful in a near future. Teachers and staff who participated in mobilities are more motivated and their competences are higher and it is much easier to attract to innovations. Through mobilities to partner schools the teachers got to know about the curricula, teaching system, methodology and technical environment in there. For the whole country we see that qualified and with international working experience young people are quite a valuable workers on our labour market. They value modern technology, new techniques and internationalization. Teachers who worked abroad, they brought new ideas to develop curricula, applied teaching plans. As quite many of our teachers and department managers have been top specialists of their field, also work in different working groups making/renewing professional standards and their knowledge is useful not only for our school, but also for other vocational schools in Estonia.

Objectives: Net-Working for Quality Culture and Assurance aims to design, develop and implement a model of Interagency working which focuses on Quality Culture and Quality Assurance across the VET journey. Eight partners from across six programme countries will adapt and develop the Net-Working for Quality Assurance model (developed in a previous Leonardo da Vinci TOI project - LLP/LdV/TOI/2012/IRL-502) so as to ensure its relevance across a wider VET journey (defined as including some/all of the following stages: decision to access VET, through employment services, through a guidance process, initial referral into VET, VET provision, transition to employment/ higher education, up-skilling in the workplace). Context/needs addressed: The previous NQA project identified that quality tends to exist within services/provision but can be significantly reduced during transition points in a clients VET journey. The Interagency approach aims to strengthen the links between stakeholders particularly in relation to shared goals and trust, and develop a culture of quality which will be aspired to by a range of stakeholders representing various stages of the VET journey. Previously, NQA sought to influence the long term achievement of Bruges (2010) which advocates the progression of individual citizens through the creation and delivery of quality assured VET initiatives 'Given the role of VET in European Societies and economies, it is crucial to ensure the sustainability and excellence of vocational education and training' (Bruges Communique, 2010). However, NQA found that quality VET journeys involve many stakeholders and many stages and that the quality of this journey particularly for those most disadvantaged required a continuum of quality assurance underpinned or enabled by quality cultures. Quality assurance within VET provision is not sufficient, but requires the VET sector to cooperate with a range stakeholders from employment services, to employers and that 'a transparency and a common approach to quality assurance in VET' (Bruges, 2010) should be a longer term objective. NQCA seeks to do just this. NQCA will research VET journeys, identify VET case studies, research QA/quality culture/Interagency working and develop an NQCA model. It will further develop NQA as a quality label, design and test Master training and NQCA training, implement 91 interagency meetings , 6 transnational meetings and 7multiplier events. It will take a serious approach to Policy-Practice gaps, create a space for this dialogue and design a Toolkit for Policy Makers to support sustainability and recognition. NQCA will demonstrate the value created through use of a Social Impact Evaluation and disseminate widely the learning achieved. The partners will utilise a Implementation science methodology (IO3).Target Groups: Learners (particulraly those disadvantaged in Education/Labour market), stakeholders involved in the VET journey (including employers), National stakeholders with a Quality agenda, European wide QA. Core partnership: 8 organisations representing 6 countries (Ireland, UK (Northern Irealnd and England), Finland, Germany, Hungary and Italy) and includes community based employment support services, learning/skills/entrepreneurial consortium, a Chamber of commerce, a large VET school, a national VET organisation, an EU wide social inclusion/labour market/and policy focused consortium, a large city based employment support service focused on employment & labour market policy, education policy and lifelong learning.Main results: NQCA model, NQA quality label, Implemented and tested pilot of interagency working (7 locations), Toolkit for Policy makers, Master training & NQCA training, Social Impact Evaluation.Impact: -Learner impact: quality will underpin their entire VET journey, placing the learner at the centre of VET provision. -Particiapting organisations: development of interagency working and quality culture, enabling bottom up approaches to QA, creating geographical areas recognised by the NQA quality label-National organisations: improve channels of communications between the bottom up approach & the top down policy approach, to lessen the gap between policy and practice, and enable quality culture to exist within the full quality cycle. -The NQA evaluation identified that many partners/stakeholders were not aware of the need for a forum to discuss quality assurance and VET. NQCA aims to have this type of wide scale impact though the creation of such fora and interagency networks in order to support organisations to work on/understand quality in VET. NQCA seeks to have long term enduring impact on partners & stakeholders as it will affect values, beliefs and behaviours and is a model which is transferable to many situations, contexts and other sectors. Improved cooperation between stakeholders will lead to improved quality across the VET journey, ultimately impacting on the low skilled and the unemployed.

"This two-year project is entitled 'Advancement and Development for Apprenticeships via Placements and Traineeships' (ADAPT) which offered both staff training and student mobility experiences and was an expansion on previously funded KA1 VET projects called ""European eXperiences for Confidence in Skills and Employability"" (EXCISE) and ""Creative Resources Embedding Awareness & Traversing European Strategies"" (CREATES) which were very much staff focused. This project clearly progresses the NWRC's European Development plan from Phase 2 to Phase 3 on its Phase 5 Plan. The project is aligned with the objectives of the Erasmus+ Programme in terms of ""equipping young people with knowledge, know-how, skills and/or competencies."" The key objectives of E2020 are also relevant in terms of ""addressing skills deficits, technological competition and .... using forums to share best practices, mutual learning and disseminating results"". All partners were keen to pursue internationalisation within their organisations. For NWRC, this is now a cornerstone of the new FE Means Business Strategy for Northern Ireland (January 2016). Three curriculum areas at three of North West Regional College's campuses were involved in terms of meeting particular needs of their staff and students. Previously students at level 2 and 3 in the curriculum were reluctant to take up placement opportunities overseas. For many, the decision was based on personal backgrounds where an opportunity like that would be seen to be beyond their means and upbringing or a lack of confidence to travel and work in another country. The majority of our student demographic would fall under the eligibility criteria for widening participation and those with fewer opportunities. The 'ADAPT' project provided 60 mobilities; 14 Staff Teaching/Training assignments, 30 VET Traineeships in companies, 16 Traineeships in vocational organisations within the curriculum areas of Fabrication/Welding, Motor Vehicles and Hairdressing, over a two year period. Our partners are comprised of a vocational organisations in Germany and 1 Enterprise and the Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure, both of which are in Malta. They are experienced host partners and we have collaborated on projects beforehand which were very successful with excellent feedback from the participants. The anticipated outcomes were exchange of learning on skills and employability opportunities that better inform curriculum development, teaching methodologies and assessment practices. For the students, there were many opportunities to gain new skills and competences as well as to develop their transversal skills such as team-working, confidence and problem-solving. All partners worked with NWRC in shaping and planning the project through preparatory visits and/or reciprocal staff exchanges and we are keen to share positive results with all stakeholders in time showing 'growth' for all."