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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: Sep 30, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

We are a College of Hospitality, Catering and Tourism, located in Alcala de Henares. We offer diplomas of Vocational Training and Higher Education. We train future chefs, waiters, hotel managers, housekeepers and tourist guides. We have a total of three hundred students and 25 teachers. Our school is fairly small and we all know each other. As a general rule, our students have not had the chance to be abroad and their foreign language skills are quite low. Most of them come from towns nearby, where they live with their families The experience of living in a foreign country would be very enriching for them, both professionally and personally. We have taken part in the last PAP call, in the Leonardo and Erasmus programs (two and four mobilities). Apart from the K103 program, we have also taken part in a K102 project (six student mobilities and two for teachers). Our project included the mobility of three students of Higher Education and finally, we have done four and one mobility for teachers. Such mobilities have been in France, Belgium, Sweden and Holland. FRANCE: this is our most important project. It includes the mobility of students to do a practical training in companies with a duration of two months and a half and the visit of our French partner in our college. Our partner, the Lycee des Metiers Antonin Careme, is a college located near Paris. We met in 2012. Its teachers have visited us twice, and we have visited them once. This college has experience in the coordination of European programs for more than twenty years. One of the Lycee teachers has been tutor-teacher of one of our students, together with the tutor assigned by the company. Thus, our student has enjoyed all the needed support to make her mobility a great success. Our French partner came in January to prepare our students’ mobilities (we use the plural form because we also have students doing their vocational and technical studies with KA 102 grants). Four teachers and fifteen students visited our college. We organized different trips of professional interest for instance, to a wine cellar in Aranda (Burgos), to Mercamadrid (a food retail market), and catering companies (several hotels and different restaurants), so that our Spanish and French students could know each other in a professional environment as well as learn about the different characteristics of our products and companies. Our students hosted the French students and we also welcomed them in our college in order to show them how we work. We carried out activities and workshops (cooking together or giving a service) and our Tourism students organized a guided tour in Alcalá de Henares. This exchange enabled our students to know their French tutors better and establish a relationship with other students that goes beyond the professional field. Furthermore, it has been beneficial for the whole school community as everybody had the opportunity to meet the French students and teachers at college and make the most of their stay. This encounter is part of the previous preparation that our students do before travelling abroad. SWEDEN: mobility of one student for two and half months. Our partner is a tour operator in Stockholm. Our student was hired and she has been working in the same company where she interned. BELGIUM: Mobility of two students for a duration of two and a half months. It is a new partner. It is a five-star hotel in the heart of Brussels.The students have had a very satisfactory experience: one student has done her traineeship in the reception and the other in the dining-room (bar, restaurant, brasserie, buffet, breakfasts…). We have organized information meetings for our students and meetings with French students and teachers. We have prepared a fair and transparent selection process, seminars for the adaptation and culture shock, a language course (French), meetings with families and former students. Finally, we have interviewed them when they were back. HOLLAND: one teacher mobility of four days for training and job-shadowing. She has travelled with two other teachers. They have visited several companies and a hospitality and catering college. We hope that thanks to this experience the minds of our students will be more open, and that they will acquire professional experience, personal resources and self-confidence, and perhaps a job. One of the four students who could enjoy the mobility has had the chance to work abroad again and another has been offered a job in the same hotel where she did her internship. Our college will benefit from a good working practice exchanged with the French and Dutch colleges as well as the visits to companies and tourism institutions. Lastly, the presence of Dutch and French teachers has been very enriching for the whole school community.
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